


Close

by menin_aeide



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: BDSM, Dom Armitage Hux, Dom/sub, Dominant Armitage Hux, Everyone Has Issues, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Interrogation, Masochism, Pain, Sadism, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-05-04 20:16:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 45,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14600883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menin_aeide/pseuds/menin_aeide
Summary: A sequel to Held - because Hux inserted himself so unexpectedly into the story, and I felt that the character was so interesting that he demanded to have his story continued.Hux is Chairman Hux now, and the most powerful man in the galaxy. Una Premy is the privileged daughter of one of the richest families on Coruscant who has got a post in Hux's team through sheer nepotism. And who seems to have schemes of her own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just for fun, this one. I really have NO IDEA where it's going, and I possibly won't update quite so frequently as with Held, so bear with me. But I hope it will be at least entertaining.

Armitage Hux, the most powerful man in the galaxy, is having a bad day. But then, ever since he made it publicly clear that he would not be Snoke’s successor, and intended to end the war and reconcile the First Order and the Resistance in a inching-towards-democratic regime, all his days have tended to be rather complicated.

He’s sitting in his office, in the makeshift headquarters which he has set up on Coruscant in a conscious return to Republican tradition. The planet will be once again the capital of the galaxy, and the seat of government. Which means no space travel for him in quite some time, and he’s missing it terribly. Sometimes he envies Ren and Rey, who have gone on a ridiculously long diplomatic tour of the Outer Rim worlds to ensure that the transition to the new regime goes smoothly, before any local petty tyrants get any ideas. Not that the irony of Ren acting as any kind of diplomat is lost on Hux.

_And yet the lucky bastard gets his own command and his own girl and is free to roam the galaxy…_

_This is what you wanted,_ he reminds himself sternly. Which is true. _But it would help if I could get laid now and then._

“Supreme Leader Hux…”

 _It’s_ Chairman _Hux, for fuck’s sake. You’d think after two years people would get it right._ He looks up from the piles of documents on his desk. _“What?”_

“The new assistant is here, sir. Lieutenant Premy.”

 _Who?_ And then remembers: Una, the daughter of Senator Premy – an industrial tycoon and power player in the First Order, who has suddenly seen the light of democracy and decided to join the ranks of the new political caste. Of course, there was no refusing him when he asked for his daughter to be given a position as near as possible to the centre of power. He sighs. “Yes. Show her in.”

Una Premy steps into the room and Hux’s hackles are instantly raised. Late twenties, tall and svelte, with a patrician bearing. Cinnamon skin, dark brown hair smoothed back into a tight bun, hazel eyes gazing ahead with cool calmness, as unimpressed by her surroundings as only someone born with a silver spoon in her mouth can be. Aloof without even realising it – exactly the kind of entitled aristocrat he has always despised. _Because putting up with Kylo Ren for years wasn’t enough, oh no._

She’s undoubtedly attractive, though. And she’s not her father’s heir-designate – that would be her brother Russ. The thought crosses his mind that her father asked for this post specifically so that she could get _really close_ to power. That is, to him. She wouldn’t be the first high-born daughter to be used as a pawn in sexual politics by her ambitious family.

_Then you have another think coming, girlie._

“Lieutenant Premy.”

“Chairman Hux,” she nods briskly.

He picks up a document and pretends to skim-read it. “So – how long did you serve before you were assigned to Coruscant?”

“It’s my first posting, sir.”

 _What a surprise._ “I see. Yet you are almost thirty, Lieutenant. A bit of a late blooming for a career in the Armed Forces, isn’t it?”

This shakes her cool demeanour, a little. “It was… brought across to me that my skills would be of most use during these difficult times if I became a public servant.”

 _Yes, no doubt your Daddy thought that that’s how you would be most useful now that things are up for grabs again._ “So what did you do before?”

“I was an academic. In the university here.”

This surprises him. He had expected some inane pseudo-occupation until some suitable husband was found for her, the usual gossiping, travelling, partying lifestyle of the young females of the upper classes, the sort you found in places like Canto Bight, squandering obscene amounts of money just to stave off their boredom. “Oh? What field?”

“Mathematics.”

He stares at her for a second, slightly thrown off by her unexpected answer. But recovers quickly enough. “ _Sir._ ”

She looks at him in perplexity. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sir. I beg your pardon, _sir.”_ He watches with satisfaction as her mouth tightens in embarrassment. “You are no longer in academia, Lieutenant. You’d do well to remember that.”

“I apologise, sir.” Staring at the ground, hard.

 _Not so haughty now, are we._ “Anyway. Lieutenant Sentu will introduce you to the rest of the team and show you the ropes. I would just like to say that these are indeed difficult times that require our utmost efforts, Lieutenant – and, accordingly, I hold my subordinates to the highest standards of service.” He locks his eyes on hers. “No matter what their background may be.”

But she’s impassive again, and just murmurs: “Yes, sir.”

He dismisses her, then calls after her, as an afterthought. “Lieutenant Premy?” She turns around. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with the Force, would you?”

She blinks at him in genuine confusion. “The…? I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.” And waves her away again.

_Thank God for small mercies._

***

She sits on her narrow berth that night, remembering the exchange, and her anger and shame surge again in her, red-hot. _Prick._

She hates it here. Hates the stiff, artificial hierarchies, the unthinking rotes, the authoritarianism which everyone seems to take as a given, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. _The bloody uniforms_. She misses the university, her graduate seminar, where everyone could – was expected to – speak their mind, criticise each other’s work. There were the departmental politics, of course, and they could get vicious. But always she felt that she was ultimately free – intellectually free to explore and write as she wished. And she was a rising star in her department, too, which helped.

And now all that is gone.

Her jaw tightens as she thinks of the blatant nepotism which she had to swallow in order to get this post – her father’s self-pleased gloating as he described to her the strings he’d pulled to get her into the Armed Forces with absolutely no training or track record, and to get her so close to the Chairman, as part of his personal team. How he suggested that her looks wouldn’t hurt, either. _Easy on the eye,_ was how he had described it, with an expression that reminded her of a satisfied cattle breeder.

But anyway, she’s here now. _And it’s all for a greater good,_ she reminds herself.

She whips out her personal computer from under the pillow and opens the program she has been working on, just to feel better. And smiles.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Hux is exhausted. Bone tired. He had known that running a transitional government while organising the first democratic elections across all the known worlds would be a lot of work. But he hadn’t counted on the fact that the Resistance’s leading representative in government would be Poe Dameron. Who seems to believe that his purpose in life is to stand in his, Hux’s, way. _All the time._ He can understand why a former Rebel pilot would be extremely suspicious – even paranoid – when it came to the intentions of the former First Order general, of course. _But eight hours straight in a meeting just to counter every possible objection that Dameron can come up with is a tad too much._

The meeting has run over so much, in fact, that he has had to skip the dinner party at the Corellian embassy – which he can’t really regret, given how boring that sort of function is. _Although I could do with some Corellian brandy right now._ And the thought cheers him up, slightly, as he walks out of the lift and into his private apartments at the top of the government building.

As the door swooshes open, he cannot help but pause and admire, as he always does, the view through the huge half-moon window in his living room. He stands there in the dark room for a couple of minutes, gazing at the vast spread of lights stretching out as far as the sight goes, a carpet so dazzling that it’s impossible to see the stars here – the entire planet is a one huge, single city, a huge beacon in the middle of the known universe. _Or a monstrous source of light pollution,_ he thinks, remembering the damp forests of his home world. And he finds himself, unexpectedly, missing that green darkness, that sense of the wild, of the unknown. Which is an odd thought for someone so hell-bent on order and rationalisation as he is. And it’s not the first time he’s been having these odd thoughts. _I’m just tired,_ he tells himself. _Get a grip._

He’s so tired, in fact, that it’s only then that he realises. His usual cat-like senses would have alerted him immediately as soon as crossed the threshold, or even before. But he feels it now – the unmistakable presence of someone else. An intruder. In his rooms.

He continues to stand still in front of the window, feigning. Every cell of his body listening. Crouching in wait, ready to leap. He can hear it now, the shallow, bated breath, the furtive movements. Smell the faint smell of another body nearby. He can practically _sense_ its heat, radiating in the dark, its throbbing pulse. He may not have the Force as Ren does, but his training has made him lethal since childhood. As the intruder is about to find out.

He stretches out his arms, pretending to yawn – then turns around in a lightning-fast twist, leaps forward, and brings down the figure that was slithering along the far-side wall towards the exit door. Immediately, he kicks its hands, but the figure doesn’t seem to be carrying any weapons. Just in case, he also knocks the intruder’s head against the floor, hard enough to stun but not to damage – he prefers to make sure that he has someone to interrogate, later.

“Lights on,” he says, and the domotic system complies, filling the room with what feels like the glare outside after the darkness.

And he finds himself kneeling over the unconscious Lieutenant Premy.

***

_Pain._

Her consciousness seems to wade through a red veil shot with stars – _painful_ stars – like the space behind the eyelids. And then, when it finally emerges, it doesn’t feel any better.

_Ow._

“It’s bound to hurt, yes,” comes the cool voice, from somewhere above and behind her. She tries to look up and find the source, and the pain becomes blinding, like a white-hot needle. “I wouldn’t move if I were you. I gave you a good knocking there.”

 _Chairman Hux._ The pain suddenly replaced by cold fear in the pit of the stomach. She scrambles to find some excuse, some story, _something,_ as he comes into her sight, perching himself cross-armed on the arm at the far end of the sofa on which she is stretched out.

“So, Lieutenant Premy,” he says. “As you can see, I haven’t called anyone yet. Are you going to tell me what you were doing in my private apartments or do I need to make things more… official?”

Her mouth is dry with pain and fear. For a second, she is tempted to try and bullshit her way through this – but one glance at Hux’s raised eyebrow makes her realise that he’s expecting exactly that. Her entire body seems to deflate in despair.

“Come on, Lieutenant,” he says, now in a slightly mocking tone. “Don’t make things any harder for you than they need to be. I know your father is Senator Premy, and I know that torture is frowned upon these days. But don’t think that I don’t have many ways to make your life very, very difficult.” He glances at the area at the far left side of the room – his writing desk. “You’ve been fiddling with my computer. What were you looking for?”

“I wasn’t looking for anything,” she mutters.

“No?” He brings something out of his pocket. Her memory drive. “So what is in here then? Lieutenant, need I remind you that the penalty for espionage is thirty years in a labour camp on some ungodly planet like Hoth?” She remains in silence. “Very well then. Let’s take a look at it.” And he moves towards his computer. Seeing her glance towards the door, he adds: “Don’t bother. The door’s locked now. And there’s five stormtroopers waiting outside.” The unspoken end of the sentence floating in mid-air: _to take you away._

Without bothering to sit down, he presses the drive into the slot in his computer and taps some keys, keeping an eye on her all the time. He looks at it. Then at her again. “A virus?”

“I told you I wasn’t looking for anything,” she says again, this time almost in a whisper. She is sitting now, hugging herself as she leans against the back of the sofa.

Hastily, Hux extracts the drive from his computer. Not that it matters much now, probably – she’s had plenty of time to infect it. He’s disconcerted – he was expecting that she would have downloaded sensitive materials for her father to blackmail him with. “ _What_ were you trying to do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmurs, sounding even more tired than him. “It hasn’t worked. Please call the guards and let’s put an end to this.”

“Put an end to _what,_ Premy?”

“It doesn’t matter. I am disgraced. I knew the risk and took it, and I accept the price. There is nothing more to say.”

He hears the utter defeat in her voice. And, for once in his life, it doesn’t satisfy him. He is a man who is driven by winning, by proving himself, by besting those around him on a systematic basis – but the woman in front of him is acknowledging her defeat so openly, with such dignity in her hopelessness, that it makes his victory pointless.

“ _No._ ” His voice so sharp that she looks up in surprise. “No, Premy. It doesn’t work this way. You don’t get to be sent to a shithole without telling me exactly what you were up to. We have people who can tell me what this… thing does.”

Unexpectedly, she smiles. Fierce, almost contemptuous. “I’d like to see them try.”

He sees the sheer arrogance in her eyes, her aristocratic disdain – even if it’s intellectually aristocratic – and really, really wants to slap her. Hard. _Fucking spoilt little girl._

“Are you challenging me, Lieutenant?”

“I wouldn’t dream to, _Chairman_.” The spite in her voice rising. Then subsiding again, as her despair floods back in, visible across her face. _Oh, but she would be easy to break. Such obvious reactions._

“Very well then. Since you insist on behaving like a child, I’ll deal with you accordingly. I’ll call your father in the morning.”

“ _No._ ” Her voice strangled. “Don’t.”

He raises a questioning eyebrow.

“Don’t,” she repeats, completely deflated now. “It’s not a virus.”

“What is it, then?”

A long silence. Then, when he’s about to threaten her again, she concedes. “It’s a decoder.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

“A decoder? To decode what?”

She crosses her arms, staring resolutely into her lap. “Your… predecessor kept an archive. Ultra-classified files.”

He nods. Yes, he knew that Snoke had kept a vast repository of highly sensitive files which nobody other than himself had access to. He was so paranoid about it, in fact, that the files had been subject to several layers of specially developed encryption, with security systems that would ring alarms if anyone other than Snoke himself tried to access them.

“The encryption on those files is the most complex ever developed by the First Order. We never used it on anything else because it was just too difficult to work with on an everyday basis. In fact, we haven’t got round to decrypting those archives yet – the decryption system seems to have depended solely on Snoke’s biometric data. And you mean, you managed to …”

“Decrypt them. Yes.” And sinks her face into her hands.

He stares at her for a second. Blinks. “That’s why you needed to access my computer. The system is set up so that only the highest position in government has access to it. And you thought I would be at the Corellian reception.”

“You were supposed to return later,” comes her muffled groan from behind her hands.

“But – there are several passwords in the system before you can get to that archive. Not to mention my own personal password. Which are all changed every week.”

Her voice flat with contempt now. “Those were _easy._ ” As it were the most obvious thing in the world, and Hux was being extremely silly to even mention it.

His mouth twitches in an amused quasi-smile as he realises. “You are a _hacker_ , Premy.”

She raises her face in indignation. “I’m a _cryptographer_!”

“Ah. _That_ kind of mathematician.” He sits again on the sofa, this time on the armrest closer to her, so that she draws back from him. “So what did you want to decode?”

She sighs. “Chairman, it was a family matter.” She looks at his hard expression, and realises what he is thinking. “It had nothing to do with my father’s business, I swear.” Still he stares stonily at her, and she sighs again. “My mother disappeared when I was little. I was told that she was killed in an accident in her lab, but I later found out that was a lie. Her disappearance was covered up. I thought I would find certain data which I needed in Snoke’s archive.”

Hux raises an eyebrow. “Your mother worked in a lab? The wife of Ingol Premy, one of the richest men on Coruscant, worked in a laboratory?”

“She was a biochemist. And my parents had been separated for some time when my mother disappeared.”

“I see. So what did you hope to find?”

She exhales. “My mother had been working in a military project when she disappeared. I think she discovered something she shouldn’t have.” She holds his gaze in hers, those hazel eyes. "I just want to find out what really happened to her. That's all."

“And why would that be in Snoke’s secret archive?”

She looks up at him. “It was the Orthyx project.”

The words hang in the silence between them for a few seconds, as he stares at her, dumbfounded. Then stutters: “The Orthyx project never existed. It was just a rumour. Resistance propaganda.”

She just looks back at him in silence, arms crossed.

This changes everything. Dramatically. He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to conceal his discomfiture. “Very well. It’s late, and I think this is enough for today. We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow. Meanwhile, you’re under arrest, Lieutenant Premy. My guards will escort you to your cell.”

She is rising from the sofa when he asks, unexpectedly: “How old were you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“When your mother disappeared. How old were you?”

“Seven.”

“Did you live with her?”

“No. My father got custody. Easily.” Her bitterness audible.

“I see.”

 

***

  
He tries to sleep, but is too rattled by what has happened: it seems he has pushed himself past that awful point where you are, paradoxically, just too tired to wind down. He decides to pour himself that Corellian brandy after all.

 _Orthyx._ He fingers the name like a rolling marble in his mind as he gazes out into the lattice of lights outside. He doesn’t even bother looking it up on his computer: he knows nothing will turn up. Orthyx has always been a secret, fearful word, something whispered in dark corridors, never in open conversation. A phantom, a taboo. It was something some of the older boys would sometimes talk about, in hushed tones, in their dorms once the lights had gone out, together with all the other stories of the dread and horror which the Empire could wreak. The place with the experiments, where captives were sent to become test subjects. The place of abominations. 

He remembers his father’s slap across his face when he mentioned the name, so hard that it cut his lip open. The blood dripping on the floor as his father snarled above him: “Don’t  _ever_ say that word again.”

He tried to find about it, much later, when he joined the First Order and gained Snoke’s trust (or as much of it as could be gained). All he found were the same rumours, the same silences. He had tried to channel conversations with Snoke towards that point, several times, only to be met with the Supreme Leader’s extreme displeasure – which most frequently took a physical form. Which led him to believe, from what he had painfully learnt about Snoke, that there was certainly something there.

He thinks about Premy. He is aware of the degree, the _bitterness_ , of his resentment towards those born in more privileged – more legitimate – circumstances than him. Those who were not a parent’s dirty little secret. Those who were lavished with every comfort, every advantage, and don’t even appreciate it. He acknowledges it – it’s what has fuelled him all the way to where he now is, his anger. And he has found himself repeatedly wanting to slap Una Premy’s stuck-up patrician composure off her face for good.

But this is a twist he wasn’t expecting – she’s a hacker. In fact, she’s a _formidable_ hacker, if she managed to cut through Snoke’s personal encryption systems. Who would have thought that a spoilt princess from the Coruscant upper crust would be capable of such a thing?

He downs the last of his glass and sighs, briefly indulging in a fantasy. Of course he noticed her body when he carried her, unconscious, from the floor to the sofa – those curves. Those lips. The swelling of her breasts beneath her jacket as she breathed. Her warmth. He’s only human, and heterosexual, and hasn’t had sex since – well, since Ren decided to… _thank_ him.

He sets the empty glass on the desk, coming back to reality. He will interrogate Una Premy tomorrow. The thought, and its effect, makes him suspect that he will need a quick wank before he falls asleep.

And for once, he wishes Ren were here – he could do with his mind-reading skills tomorrow. Because he hasn’t believed that she has told him the truth – or at least the whole truth – for a second.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

After the endless, sleepless night, the nights come for her again early in the morning. They give her some time to get ready, so she is able to wash her face and get the sleep out of her eyes, smooth her hair (sort of) back into a passable ponytail. She stares at her face in the small mirror, in the sickly white glare of the cell: she looks ashen, and her eyes are ringed with purple, and every single one of her joints hurts. _Which is no doubt the purpose of these mattresses – to tenderise people before interrogation._

They lead her down windowless corridors and into a windowless room, with only a table and two chairs, one on either side, and a long, obviously one-side mirror, along a wall. One of the guards gestures for her to sit on the chair with its back to the door, and they leave her there.

And she waits. And waits. And waits.

When she thinks she is about to drop her arms onto her arms on the table out of tiredness or boredom, the door opens, and Hux walks in, briskly. Clearly he’s a morning person. _And he has actually slept._

“Good morning, Lieutenant Premy,” he says, squaring the edges of the flimsies jutting out of a folder as he places it in front of him on the table. “Coffee?”

He gestures to an assistant to has walked in behind him and who sets down a tray with two metal mugs, two metal canisters, and a dropper with sweetener next to him.

“That would be nice, thank you.”

He pours. “Milk? Sweetener?”

“No, thank you.”

“Bitter,” he remarks.

She doesn’t say anything, but takes the mug which he hands her. And gratefully sips the dark, hot, – yes – bitter drink.

She is starting to feel slightly more human again, when she looks up at notices that Hux is looking at her with a small, vulpine smile. _God, she’s going to be easy._

But she says: “Has my father called you already?”

“No,” he frowns immediately. “Why should he?”

“He will.”

He stares at her, her aloofness, her coolness, her maddening self-confidence. And opts not to take the bait. He opens the folder. “Let’s start, shall we. Tell me what you were doing in my apartment last night.”

“I told you last night.”

“Sir.”

She blinks for a second, then barely hides a smile, incredulous that he is still insisting on this in the middle of all this mess. “ _Sir._ ”

He has the urge to stand up, reach across the table, and slap the smile off her face. Or worse. “You are in the military now, Lieutenant. You are in serious enough trouble already. I would suggest you reconsider your attitude.”  

“Yes, sir.”

 _Is she mocking me?_ But the pale hazel eyes, so striking against her swarthy skin, are looking straight at him, unwavering. If she’s bluffing, she’s a fantastic bluffer.

Which he is increasingly coming to believe that is the case. “Again. Tell me the story again.”

She does, in practically the same terms as she had the did last night. Which he knows is indicative of lying. “Right. So – how do you know your mother was involved in the Orthyx project?”

She raises an eyebrow. “My parents talked, Chairman. I listened.”

“Your parents in plural?”

“Well, obviously, my father knew what my mother did.” In some irritation.

“And he talked about it? Even though they no longer lived together?”

She frowns silently for a second. “My parents’ separation was quite acrimonious, Chairman. They weren’t fond of each other, after. My mother stopped working when she married my father, and started working again after their separation. My father disliked this. Intensely.”

“But the Orthyx project was possibly the most secret research project in the Empire, after the Death Star. Yet your father knew about it?”

Now she smiles, a small, bitter smile. “There is very little my father can’t find out when he sets his mind to it, Chairman.”

 _I bet._ “So you overheard your parents talk about the project. What did they say about it?”

“As I said, my father disliked it. My mother was… distracted. All the time. She travelled constantly. I hardly saw her, the last year before she…”

“Yes,” he says impatiently. “But about the _contents_ of the project. You said that you thought your mother disappeared because of something she found. What was the project about?”

This seems to cast a shadow across her face. “It involved experimenting. On people. The bad sort of experimenting. It upset my mother.”

 _Can’t say I’m surprised._ “Do you think your mother could have disappeared because she – objected to this?”

“No. Let’s face it, the Empire had ways to force unwilling scientists to comply. I know it happened with Death Star scientists – they would take their families hostage. My mother always knew resistance wasn’t an option.”

“She could have escaped.”

“She would never have left without me.” Fiercely.

He thinks. “Do you have any of your mother’s papers?”

“My parents were still married when she was declared dead. Everything went to my father as the spouse. Any papers, my father would have them.”

“And you haven’t seen them?”

“I’ve tried.”

“So you have no idea what the project was about?”

“Other than it probably had to do with biological warfare involving human experimentation, no.”

But he sees the tiny, tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth, how she slightly purses her lips. _You are lying._

“So what did you think about my reading habits?” Slant-wise.

“What?”

He leans back in his chair, pleased to have caught her by surprise. “You didn’t just hack into my computer when you broke into my rooms, Lieutenant. You had a good snoop, didn’t you? You went into my room and sniffed around – you even picked up the books on my nightstand to take a look.”

To his utter delight, she blushes at this, rather spectacularly. He takes advantage of this moment of weakness to stand up, quickly step next to her, and seize her wrist, hard. “Don’t take me for an idiot, Premy. Did you think I wouldn’t realise? I realised immediately when I walked into that room that you were there, and I later knew exactly where you had been – I could _smell_ your presence all over the place. You may fool the whole word that butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, that you are Senator Premy’s untouchable little girl, but not me. Do not toy with me.”

She looks up at him as he glares, and swallows. Her fear visible. Then she jerks her arm out of his grasp, and spits out: “I’m nobody’s little girl. _Sir._ ” They stare at each other. “And you should read something other than military biographies now and then.”

She’s panting in anger. And it’s he who has to swallow, now. He stands back again, forcing himself back into composure. “I want to look further into this Orthyx matter, Lieutenant. And I also am in need of your… unexpected skills. So you’re still confined to this base, but you’ll be working with me. Under close supervision.” He buzzes for the guard to open the door. “You may leave now. I’ll call for you later.”

He watches as the door swishes shut behind her. And gulps down the coffee which he had forgotten about until now, desperately trying to ignore his arousal.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well - so this is turning out to be more of a slow-burn story than I had anticipated, because, hey, it's Hux, and he seems to have met his match in this respect in Una Premy. But don't worry, it's coming (no pun intended). 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has read and commented. It really does mean a lot to me.

He has hardly sat in his chair, back in his office, when Lieutenant puts his head around the door. “Supreme… Chairman Hux, Senator Premy is requesting a talk with you via holocall.”

He blinks. “Er. Yes, put him through.” And touches the key on his console to allow the call in.

The greenish beam flickers and widens, resolving itself into Senator Premy’s face – broad, powerful, with a slightly jutting jaw and calculating eyes. Pale-skinned, unlike his daughter, but now he can see the resemblance – the same sense of reserve, of something held back. Hux has had some minor dealings with the Senator in the past, and remembers his awareness that this was a potentially dangerous man he was dealing with – and moreover a man who _wanted_ him to know that he was potentially dangerous underneath all his politeness, like a mine wrapped in velvet. In the case of the daughter the reserve is… different. He hasn’t figured out exactly in what way different yet.

 “Chairman Hux. Thank you for taking my call.” The full-bodied vowels of the Coruscant upper classes, ripened through generations of money and privilege, which used to make Hux automatically bristle with resentment. He no longer has such a strong reaction. But he is still aware of when they are being used deliberately as a class marker, a reminder.

“What can I do for you, Senator?”

“I have been told that my daughter has spent the night under arrest, in a cell. Is that right?”

He forces his face to be as expressionless as possible. “You were told? May I ask who told you that?”

“Is it true then?”

“Senator Premy, Lieutenant Premy is an adult. Moreover, she is now under military jurisdiction. I am not at liberty to disclose any information pertaining to her.” He tilts his head meaningfully. “And I fail to see why you presumed me to be.”

He can see how the Senator’s face flushes with anger. “We are talking about _my_ _daughter_ , Chairman, not just a nobody from some backwater planet! How dare you…”

“Senator Premy, before you say anything we will both regret, I can assure you that Lieutenant Premy is safe and well. She is allowed one holocall a week. If she wishes to, she will call you or some other relative to explain her situation.”

A cloud comes over the Senator’s expression. “Yes. Well. I was hoping that _you_ would tell me what’s going on, Chairman. After all, my daughter is a member of your personal team. I think you owe me that at least. On a _personal_ level.”

Hux’s demeanour becomes even stiffer. “Senator, I am perfectly aware that your daughter joined the armed forces by… unconventional means, and that she was given a position as one of my assistants after you pulled many, and considerably high-level, strings. I am willing to put up with a moderate amount of low-grade nepotism to smooth things over in these turbulent times.” He leans forward towards the scowling hologram. “But don’t confuse a favour with a debt. A personal favour was done to you. You are owed nothing.”

The Senator’s jaw clenches, in the same way as his daughter’s does. “I see. It seems there is nothing to discuss then. I will see you in the Senate, then, Chairman.” And adds, ominously, “Very soon.”

Hux nods goodbye and cuts off the call. Takes a look at the time.

_Well, that was quick._

And then it occurs to him. He weighs it in his mind for some time. Rationally, he suspects it is risky, in more ways than one. But there is something more, something pushing him, which he can’t quite understand. _Compelled,_ that’s the word. He’s not a man who allows himself to be driven by his passions, Hux. But he knows enough to listen to compulsion when it speaks, if only to try and understand it.

He buzzes Sentu. “Lieutenant Sentu, please arrange for Lieutenant Premy to be escorted to my rooms this evening at eight.”

 

***

If she’s surprised to find herself back in Hux’s rooms, she’s hiding it well. But then he suspects she’s rather good at that sort of thing.

At his indication, the two guards leave the room, and she is left standing across from him where he sits on an armchair. “Please,” he motions towards the sofa. The one on which he laid her when he knocked her out last night – she has the bump to prove it, a painful lump beneath her hair, now. Again, she sits at the end farthest from him.

“You will be working from here, now,” he says. “You may ask for any equipment you need – we have had to seize your personal computer, of course, to examine it. Quite _interesting_ stuff you’ve got there.”

She doesn’t say a word.

“The reason why you’ll be working here and not in the office is because I need you to do some… extracurricular activities, which I would rather were not overlooked by the rest of my staff.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You want me to spy for you.”

He beams a smile. “You _are_ smart.” And looks at her levelly. “As I am sure you have realised, no charges have been filed over your little… incursion into my private apartment last night. Yet.”

She returns his gaze, just as levelly. “I see.”

“And, being so smart, you will no doubt have deduced that this state of affairs remaining thus is entirely contingent upon your compliance in this respect.” She says nothing, which he takes as implicit, if clearly unwilling, assent. “So this is the deal. I need you to do some hacking for me. In exchange, I will forget about your trespassing and spying. And we can both look into the Orthyx matter.”

At this, she looks up, visibly animated. “Really?”

He nods. “Yes. I am also… curious about it. I cannot promise you anything – I don’t know what the potential ramifications may be. But I’m interested.”

She seems to be calculating something internally, for a second. Then says: “I will need special equipment, yes.”

“Good. Give us a list in the morning, and we’ll get it to you immediately.” He is silent for a second, then says: “You do realise what this will look like, though.”

She raises her eyebrows. “What what will look like?”

“You will be living here. In my rooms. With your ability to find holes in almost any system, I’m not allowing you anywhere near an exit door. No, you’ll stay here and be under supervision at all times. Everyone will think I have taken you as my mistress.” He smirks sarcastically. “Which is, after all, what your father wanted.”

Sheer rage breaks through her façade for a second, like a thunderstorm, but she manages to tamp it down by a sheer effort of will, so visibly that he cannot but sit back and admire. And imagine what happened to her to have to learn such rigid self-control, such iron grip on her emotions. Recognising it.

And, for one brief second, feeling an extreme urge to provoke her into losing her grip.

“He already called you,” she says, not asks, cool again.

“Yes.” He tilts his head, with an odd half-smile. “Is he always like that?”

She looks back at him, saying nothing, but the reply is obvious. _You have no idea._

***  


She was almost expecting the auxiliary staff to set up an inflatable bed for her in Hux’s living room, but apparently there is a smaller room on the left side of the apartment, beyond the desk area, which Hux seems to have been using for storage. As the boxes are taken out to make space for her cot, she notices a large, slightly dusty canvas being set aside, carefully propped up against a wall. As nobody seems to be paying her any attention, and Hux has gone to his office to finish some late tasks, she sidles up to it and holds it back to take a look.

A military man, obviously a relative of Hux’s, with the same ginger hair and pale eyes. But larger, broader, stronger. Crueller. The portrait is no doubt meant to be flattering and glorifying, but the artist was good enough to capture the hardness beyond the conventional virility, the callousness. It’s meant to be the portrait of a triumphant general, and it is – but it's also the depiction of a cold-blooded butcher.

And she shivers for a second. Seeing something in those cold, hard eyes that reminds her of her father’s familiar glint.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soo... getting slowly there. And yes, they are both much more twisted than they realise.

He returns to his darkened rooms, later. As he nods past the standing guards, he thinks he catches a glimpse of a knowing smirk on one of them – no doubt they think that he’s about to have some fun now. He would normally tell the guard to wipe that smile off his face, but he’s too tired, and besides, he finds that he actually _likes_ the idea that people are thinking that. And he wants to make sure that Premy knows it. He wants to humiliate her, to bring her down, to see that haughtiness defeated and _gloat._ He wants to see her squirm.

And on another, deeper level of which he is only intermittently aware, he actually enjoys the thought of having a mistress. And living with him, no less.

Not that he will force himself on her – he’s not that kind of man. And there seems to be something rather pathetic about having to force or pay someone to touch you. It’s not as if he needs to, anyway. He’s Chairman Hux now, the head of the transitional government. Lots of people are willing to fling themselves at him, given half a chance, even if it’s not exactly because they have fallen in love at first sight with him. Power has a strong effect on lust, he finds.

Which makes him remember Senator Premy’s blatant plans regarding his daughter and him, and the anger which drives him constantly, like a thrumming energy in the background, becomes sharper and hotter. _Wanted to bait me with your daughter’s cunt, did you, Senator?_ Very well: he will get what he wanted. His daughter will be known to be Chairman Hux’s whore. While reaping absolutely none of the benefits which her father expected.

He smiles slyly to himself in the dark as he gets into bed, pleased with the thought of besting those stuck-up aristocrats, with the thought of _showing them._ And then he thinks again about how satisfyingly easy it was to crunch Lieutenant Premy’s slim wrist in his hand, the flicker of fear in her eyes as he loomed over her. And then remembers her fury, how she lashed out at him, and is surprised by his instant, hard erection.

 

***

She hears his soft treading across the living room towards his bedroom when he returns. He reminds her of a cat, sometimes, in the way he moves, the way in which he seems distant and unconcerned and suddenly can turn his attention and pounce. They way in which he pounced on her in these rooms, actually.

She remembers the sudden shock of his hand around her wrist, gripping, hurting her, his pale blue eyes boring into her threateningly. The shock of realising that she had underestimated him. The man is dangerous, clearly. But then, she’s been brought up among dangerous people – if not quite one of them (to her family’s often-stated disappointment), then at least she is someone who can read the signs and act accordingly.

She thinks of her father. Who knew that she had been arrested, of course. He always knows – he has eyes and ears everywhere. As a little girl, she used to think that she was transparent to him, that there was no way she could hide anything from him, he would always find out, her hidden caches, her hidden thoughts. Which was how she ended up studying cryptology: how to keep things secret.

Only it goes two ways, of course: learning how to keep something secret means also learning how to find what’s hidden, how to break in. Encryption implies decryption. It wasn’t something she considered when she first started doing this. And now two men want to use her as a weapon to break into someone else’s secrets.

She turns on her side, hugging herself. Hugging _her_ secret to herself. And dreams, as she falls asleep, of caressing the blade of a knife.

   
***

“You want to _what_?”

“You heard me.”

She stares up at him. He has had a smaller desk placed for her, adjoined to his, so that she is sitting across from him, on a slightly lower level, so he can glare at her from above. Which is completely deliberate, of course. He wants to keep her at a disadvantage, constantly.

She looks at the list he has given her again. “But these are your allies in the Senate. Shouldn’t you be spying on your enemies, rather?”

He smiles, a small, tight smile. “You never know.”

She runs her eye over the list. Looks up. “My father?”

“Yes.” He watches her reaction closely. “It shouldn’t be too much trouble for you.”

“Raking up my family’s shit?” She places the flimsy on the desk and stares levelly back at him, impassive. “Not really, no.”

She has completely forgotten to call him “sir” by now, but after all their relationship is no longer strictly within the scope of the military – he has taken it to a different (and illegal) level altogether. So he’s letting it slide. For the time being.

He keeps watching her as she starts working, tapping in silence at her computer. In front of him, on his own computer screen, he has the report from his own analysts on the contents of Premy’s seized laptop. As expected, they found the code she wrote to hack into Snoke’s archives – which they are dissecting and scrutinising within an inch of its life, stunned by its unparalleled level of sophistication. But there is also a list of all the other documents stored in her disc. There is a subset of documents which the analysts seem to have cursorily taken a look at and tagged as “Personal – Fiction.” But Hux is nothing if not curious. And he took a closer look.

He smiles to himself as he looks at her, the smile of a cat as he sees a mouse unknowingly run into a corner with no way out. He loves the feeling, the power which she doesn’t fully realise he has over her. _You don’t know yet but I know, Premy. I know_.

 *** 

She knows he’s watching, but refuses to look up, to acknowledge him. It’s the way in which she has always resisted – secrecy and refusal. Pretending. Hiding.

She’s fully aware that keeping her in front of him, across his desk, under his gaze, is a way to unsettle her. She’s concealing it, but being aware of his intentions doesn’t make it any less discomfiting.

But it’s not his obvious power play that is most unsettling, not really – she’s used to that. It’s his proximity. She is haunted by flashes from her incursion into his bedroom, two nights ago. How she walked in there, unnecessarily. How she turned over the books on his nightstand, ran her hand over the turned-down sheet, white and crisp, the clean, male scent lingering in the dark air. The sensuousness of it.

Why on earth had she done that? And, more worryingly, why on earth did she feel her skin prickle, her stomach knot?

She glances sideways, involuntarily, across the room at the door to his bedroom, which is now shut. Not realising that he’s caught both her glance and the way in which she quickly swallows as she looks down at the keyboard again.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux finally gets down to it. Finally.

She looks up from the keyboard, finally, and the wave of self-loathing which had been gathering momentum at the back of her mind for hours on end crashes over her. Nothing if not methodical, she saves her work, encrypts everything, and then allows herself to throw her head back and her shoulders to sag in disgust. _I need a shower. Now._

She is alone in the apartment, as Hux had a meeting. She stares again at the now-dark screen, unable to rid herself of all the filth she has spent almost a week gathering. Not that she is particularly surprised – being raised among the high and mighty is enough to prevent anyone from harbouring any illusions about what people are capable of, their petty obsessions, absurdities, malice, and, yes, even evil, sometimes. But still she feels dirty, after such a long time dredging through other people’s shit. _And these are his_ allies.

And of course, there was her own family. Not that she has found anything she didn’t know already, but it is odd to have to set it down, black on white, for other eyes to see. Personally shameful, in a way she hadn’t expected. As when a stranger – a teacher, a nanny – would look at her oddly, at something she’d unknowingly let slip. Her shame, as a little girl, when she realised they pitied her, or worried about her. Her feeling that she had somehow betrayed something that had to be kept secret at all costs.

She is wondering whether she can risk taking a quick shower when the door sighs open behind her and Hux walks briskly in. “So how’s it going, Premy?”

She immediately composes herself again. “I’ve gone as thoroughly as I could through the list you gave me. I think you’ll find it – useful.”

He smirks. “Anything particularly juicy?”

She tries to think of someone she doesn’t like much. It doesn’t take long. “Senator Foll-Delbayum. He’s been embezzling funds from the planetary taxes in his constituency for decades. He’s spent them entirely on building and maintaining a giant aquarium in his bedroom – by my calculations, it must be the largest private aquarium in the galaxy by now. Where he keeps giant blue lobsters. And he has a team of in-house salaried sealife trainers. Apparently, he’s trying to teach his lobsters tricks.”

Hux stares at her for a second, mouth agape. “Lobsters…?”

“Yes. Giant blue lobsters.”

He stares at her some more. And then, unexpectedly, Hux throws his head back, and laughs and laughs. And unexpectedly, she can’t help but smile at the ridiculousness of it. And at his contagious mirth.

Eventually, he wipes a tear of laughter from the corner of his eye. “Trained lobsters. God, people are weird.” He looks at her, still smiling. “And sex?”

She goes abruptly serious again. “Yes. Of course. You will find a detailed list in the dossier I’ve prepared.”

“Anything that caught your eye in particular?” An odd glint in his eye.

“Not really, no.” She looks straight at him, defiant. “People tend to be rather repetitive and unimaginative in this sort of thing.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Unimaginative?”

She holds his gaze. But he is unwavering, and eventually she wraps her arms around her torso, as if to hide herself from him as much as possible. 

He watches as she finally tears her eyes away, losing their little stand-off, and feels his arousal uncoiling inside him. _Oh, I know what you imagine, Premy. And you’re going to tell me all about it._

And then he looks again, and sees how ashen she looks. “Are you all right, Premy? You look exhausted.”

She blinks at him, caught off-guard. “No, it’s just… It’s not the sort of thing I’m used to doing. Spying, I mean. Finding this sort of thing.” She looks up at him. “Do you really need this… filth?”

He looks at her for a second. Then gestures with his head for her to get up. “Come on, Premy. Let’s get you some dinner.”

***

He watches her in silence as she sips the mushroom soup, her exquisite manners. No doubt she has never used anything other than ironed linen napkins, and had it instilled in her that you push your spoon away from you when you have soup before she even learnt to walk. It took Hux years of painful mishaps and embarrassments to get the social codes right. And he is still secretly embarrassed, secretly terrified of getting something wrong, every time he has to go to a public function. Even though nobody notices because he’s so good at being an authoritarian.

He wants to slap her, to punish her for her privilege, for the fact that it has never even occurred to her that she could misstep, for her lack of social insecurity. He wants to take his resentment out on her, make her pay for all his years as an outcast, as nobody.

And yet, there is also something else – a lack, a fear in her eyes. He finds it hard to understand that a Premy, someone as cossetted and protected as her, could fear anything other than the possibility of losing her privileges. But there is something there, clearly, which he recognises immediately. The hurt.

He’s curious. He hadn’t expected this, but he’s a man who is not easily interested, and recognises the rarity – and potential value – of anything that arouses his curiosity. He feels a strong urge to prise it out of her, whatever it is. And he's enjoying it.

She realises he’s staring at her. “Your soup will go cold.”

They are sitting at a table in a corner of the canteen, which is darkened and empty at this hour, well past its usual closing time. Hux’s voice on the commlink was enough to send some unlucky cook down here at full speed and heat up the remains of the day’s menu for them.

They eat. The hapless cook hurries to bring them the second course – chicken in sauce, slightly dry by now, but still edible. And he says: “Yes, I do need it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was answering your question. Yes, I do need the filth you are digging up for me. I need to set up a functioning government, and that filth will ensure that the path is as clear as possible.”

“And that is the best way to start a democratic regime? Blackmail? What about transparency, accountability, the rule of law?”

He rests his cutlery on the plate. “This is not a democracy, Premy. Not yet. These are murky waters. We are coming out of a dictatorship and trying to set up something that is as functional and, yes, as democratic as possible. But we have to play with cards that have already been dealt – and that means handling leftovers from the previous regime.” He tilts his head at her. “Or would you rather prefer that I had every single person who was ever involved with Snoke’s government executed and start from scratch?”

“No! Of course not.” She looks appalled. “But these people I’ve been investigating – they’re supposed to be _on your side_.”

“You aren’t naïve enough to think they are loyal to me – or to anything, for that matter – are you, Premy?” He cuts a piece of thigh and eats it. “At any given time, true believers are very, very thin on the ground. Most people are just opportunistic – they will pick the side that they believe will benefit them most. And why shouldn’t they? Most of the governing élites under Snoke have suddenly decided that democracy is great after all, and are out to grab as large a piece of the pie as they can. Exactly as they did with Snoke.”

“Some people fought Snoke, you know,” she replies, dryly. “Because they thought it was the right thing to do.”

“The Resistance, you mean?” He swallows another bite. “They did. Some of them. A few of them. Many of them, however, just happened to be on that side of the war. Or thought it would benefit them more. Or were forced into it.”

“You don’t think there’s such a thing as right and wrong, then.”

“Of course I do. But they’re never so clear-cut. Things are messy. With people, things are always messy.”

“And you’re a pragmatist.”

“That I am.” He looks at her plate. “Eat. You’re not eating.” He leans forward. “I want to _get things done,_ Premy. I’m not a monster. I’m not willing to do _anything_ to get my way. But I am willing to find out the embarrassing stuff that some stupid politician has been doing in order to ensure that they are on the right side of history.”

“That’s not fair. Everyone does something ridiculous or stupid at some point. Or something that can be made to look like that.”

There’s that odd look in his eye, again. “Everyone has secrets, true. But there are secrets and secrets. Some secrets are shameful in themselves. Others you are ashamed of.”

“How so?”

“Well, take Senator Foll-Delbayum’s pet lobsters. It’s shameful – and a criminal offence – that he’s siphoning off funds that should go to children’s hospitals into his very own crustacean menagerie. And no doubt he’ll be humiliated if – when – his stealing is exposed. But I don’t think he’s ashamed of it. He’s probably very proud of his aquarium, and shows it off to all his friends.” He finishes his meat and lays his knife and fork side by side on the plate, a neat radius. “By contrast, some people have… proclivities which in principle shouldn’t be shameful, because they are harmless. And yet they are desperate to hide them, terrified of being found out. Because they are so ashamed of it. Even before themselves.”  

He is looking at her in the eye now, deadly serious. “Like pain.”

She freezes. Then swallows. And soldiers ahead, blindly. “Pain is not harmless,” she says, much lower than she had intended.

“True. But that is not the source of the shame, is it? Harming yourself. If anything, that would be a relief. No, the shame comes from somewhere else. Doesn’t it?”

She cannot break away, cannot break free from his cold gaze, which is pinning her down against her seat as her stomach tightens and icy tendrils run down her sides. She is unable to say anything, her throat constricted, her breath suddenly short and rapid, as if she were choking.

And then suddenly there’s the cook again, offering them dessert, coffee, a blessed interruption, distracting Hux, disrupting the icy flow, the icy chain he was casting around her.

“No, I think that will be all for tonight, thank you,” answers Hux in some irritation. He looks at her. “Unless you want something?”

She shakes her head mutely, just wanting this to be over. Just to be back in her dark room, in her narrow bed, and shut herself off, and sleep, and forget.

They go back to his apartment in silence, in the lift, and she is tempted to allow herself the hope that perhaps he was distracted, or too tired, or he didn’t mean what he meant after all. But she’s lucid enough, and familiar enough with Hux by now, to know not to deceive herself. This is a respite. Nothing more.

But it’s not even that. He keys his code in and lets her in first, into the gloom. And then his hand on her elbow, tight, his mouth next to her ear.

“It’s needing it, isn’t it? The fact that you _need_ to be hurt. That’s what makes you ashamed.”

Like ice, burning. She stiffens against him, and he grips her arm even harder, digging his fingers into her flesh. Hurting her.

Then turns her around, grabs her by the hair, and pulls her into a kiss.

 


	8. Chapter 8

He holds her tight as he kisses her, and bears down roughly on her mouth, almost biting, and the thought crosses her mind to pull away and say indignantly “What do you think you are doing?”, but it’s obvious what he’s doing –

Also, she realises as her mouth yields open and her body presses up against his as if its own volition, it feels _really good_.

She does pull away after a few long seconds. To see him looking at her with that insufferable _smirk_ of his. “Seems I struck the right note,” he says.

Fury – fuelled by shame and lust – rises in her. She’s not someone prone to violent impulses, but she does wish she could slap that fatuous smile off his face right now. “So this is your idea of foreplay?” she says glacially, packing as much contempt as she can into her words.

“No. It’s yours.” He grips her again by her wrist, hard, and twists her arm painfully behind her back so that she is forced to spin around and bend at the waist where he holds her from behind. Still twisting, he forces her forward and pushes her onto the sofa. “There,” he says. “Let’s lay a few ground rules for how things are going to be between us from now on, _Lieutenant._ I know what turns you on. I know about your little fantasies which you have described so eloquently. Who would have imagined that mathematicians could have such a literary flair.”

He watches with deep satisfaction as she blushes. And as she rallies. “You had no right to look at that.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find that government officials _are_ entitled to go pretty thoroughly through the belongings of any spy they catch in the act.” He picks up a tablet on his desk and sits on a chair across from her. “I rather enjoyed your description of the main character’s conflicted feelings. Shame can be such a stimulant.”

She sits up tall – or as tall as she can – on the sofa. Steely. “Is this what you want? To humiliate me? Does that turn you on?”

He raises an eyebrow as he looks up at her from the tablet. “Oh yes. It does turn me on. But I want much more than this.” He lowers the tablet and looks at her in the eye. “I want you to tell me about it. I want you to tell me about your thoughts, the things that cross your mind when you masturbate at night. I want you to tell me about your fantasies, the things you’ve been ashamed of all your life and you’ve never told anyone about, not even your lovers. And I want you to tell me about them in extreme detail.”

She stares at him in utter shock, unable to say anything. Finally: “You are a pervert.”

“Possibly,” he concedes. “Or just curious. Or both. I like power, Premy, and knowledge is power. And you’re going to tell me absolutely everything about the filthy pain slut that you conceal so well beneath that posh frigid bitch façade of yours.”

The words hit her like a slap in the face. “You’re going to blackmail me,” she manages to croak out, eventually.

He smiles. “I do like holding the strings, I can’t deny that. But no, Premy, in this case my motivation is much simpler. I want to _know._ I suspect you are incredibly twisted when no one sees you, and I want to see that.” He tilts his head back. “And if I’m happy with what you show me, I will consider investigating the Orthyx matter.”

She almost leaps up from her seat, fists balled up in fury. “You promised I could investigate the Orthyx project! We made a deal!”

“If I remember rightly, I caught you when you were intruding in my private apartment, hacking into incredibly restricted systems, and committing barefaced espionage – enough to sentence you to twenty to thirty years, and that’s only because your Daddy would pull strings for the court to be lenient. Exactly what sort of _deal_ did you think you were making?”

“You said you would use my skills in exchange for my freedom. And that you were interested in Orthyx.”

“And that’s exactly what I intend to do, Premy. I want to use you. _All_ your skills.” His eyes piercing her, a hungry predator. “And I am interested in Orthyx. But it comes at a price.”

“What price?” she asks weakly.

“This is how it’s going to be from now on. During the day, you will do the work I require of you. Which I have no doubt will be excellent, because you are a remarkable hacker and because I have my entire team of intelligence analysts watching every single step you take on your computer, just in case you decide to do something silly. They are learning a lot, taking lots of notes, I believe.” He leans forward. “Then we’ll have dinner and I’ll ask you some questions. And you will answer me with complete, utter truthfulness and in excruciating detail. And if I’m happy with your answers, then you get what you need to investigate Orthyx. Not so hard, is it?”

She glares at him. _Not so hard._ “Bastard.”

He shuts his eyes at the insult, as if both deflecting it and somehow processing it internally. Then smiles as he opens them again. “Quite. Now tell me – these stories of yours. When did you start to write them?” He cocks his head. “I’ll know if you lie to me.”

She wraps her arms around herself protectively as she tends to do. “When I first went to university.”

“But you had had these fantasies for a very long time.”

“Yes.”

“You had never tried to write them before?”

“I couldn’t. Anything I wrote would have been found and read.” She glares at him. “Like now.”

“So why did you write them down if you didn’t want anyone to read them?”

She looks slightly taken aback by the question. “I… it was for myself.”

“For yourself?” He raises an eyebrow. “You mean, you used them to masturbate? As a wank aid?”

 _God, this is unbearable._ She looks down at the floor, flustered. “No, I… It was just a way to keep notes.”

“Keep notes? Of your fantasies?” He looks at her, how she averts her gaze from him in shame, almost contorting in her seat, and the realisation hits him. “They aren’t fantasies, are they? They are real. It’s not a character in those stories. It’s _you_.”

Suddenly, she jumps up and makes for the door, unable to stand it any longer. And just as quickly, he stands up and reaches her, seizing her by the elbow.

And then she flips. Before she even realises what she’s doing, her free arm swings and she rakes her nails down his face, drawing four bloody trails against his pallor. Then hurls herself at him, kicking and scratching and biting desperately, like a wild animal trapped, just wanting to _hurt_ him, to _maim_ him so that he will drop her and let her go.

Astonished, he forces himself to ignore his automatic reaction to strike back, reining in the deadly reflexes drilled by years and years of training. _So this is what her fight or flight reaction looks like. A wildcat._ Eventually, he overpowers her easily, grabbing her by her wrists, and throws her onto the sofa again. And stands looming tall over her, both panting as they stare at each other.

He touches his scratched face and looks at the blood on his fingers. “Yes. It seems I struck the right note.” Looking down at her. “We’ll continue tomorrow. I suggest you go to bed. Sleep well, Premy.”

Then gives the voice command to turn the lights off and leaves her lying alone in the dark.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yep, Ren and Rey are back. You didn't think I would miss the opportunity to annoy Hux, did you?

“So they tell me you got yourself a girlfriend?”

He is standing in the queue in the canteen – as he always did with his troops, Hux makes a point of eating where his staff eats – when he hears the teasing voice behind him.

“I hadn’t expected you to be a gossip, Dameron”.

“And _I_ hadn’t expected you to be quite human. You are full of surprises, Chairman.”, replies Poe, and flashes a grin at Hux. The former pilot lives openly in an apparently very happy threesome with Finn and Rose Tico – which doesn’t prevent him from flirting outrageously with practically anything that has a pulse, whatever its gender or lack thereof. He follows Hux as they load their trays with the dish of the day – a rather unappetising-looking lasagne, but both Hux and Poe are used to army fare – and then plops his tray, uninvited, across from Hux when he sits at a lone table at the back of the canteen. “I need to talk to you.”

“Clearly,” replies Hux dryly, utterly unthrilled by the unexpected company. “What is it this time?” Because Poe has turned into sort of the bane of his existence, systematically questioning and delaying all his efforts to get anything done about the ramshackle transitional government which he’s trying to set up. And mostly, Hux suspects, out of sheer _annoyingness –_ just because the former Resistance pilot enjoys riling the former First Order general.

“Do you know Senator Premy? You know – Ingol Premy, the industrialist?”

Hux digs into his lasagne non-committally. “I know _of_ him.”

“He’s approached us – the Resistance faction – the former Resistance faction – the opposition – whatever you want to call it, you know what I mean. Looking for support. He hasn’t said it out loud, but it’s clear he wants to oust you as Chairman.”

Hux raises his eyebrows in surprise. “And you are telling me about this _why_?”

Poe looks down at his plate. “It’s true that at first I was all for it – I fought for the Rebellion. I’ve always found having Snoke’s top general leading the government very hard to swallow.”

“ _Transitional_ government,” points out Hux.

“Yeah.” Poe spears some lasagne rather ineffectually. “To be honest, I have never believed that. I thought it was just a ruse to ensconce yourself in power – that once you got your arse on your seat, you would find excuses never to leave it, and we would have another dictatorship on our hands again. But then Rey called me.”

“She _called_ you? From…?”

“They are no longer in the Outer Rim – they’re on Bespin now, in Cloud City. Good communications from there. Seems they’re headed back.”

Hux suppresses a surge of irritation at the thought that his second-in-command and his partner have called the leader of the opposition and forgotten about _him,_ who is, after all, their boss. And he is also uncomfortably aware that, in a way, he is jealous – why did they call _Dameron_ and not him? “I see. Well, it will be good to have their detailed report about the state of Outer Rim politics soon,” he says stiffly.  

Poe takes a look at Hux’s frown and laughs out loud. “Hey, no need to get all upset, man! It was my birthday – Rey remembered. That’s why she called. I didn’t speak to Ren at all, thank God”, he shudders. “I’m sure they’ll call you soon enough.”

“No doubt.”

“Anyway, I told Rey about Senator Premy and about my doubts about you, and she went ballistic, completely ballistic!”

“What did she say?” Hux asks, curious.

“That you’re a good man and you saved Ren and her and you are some sort of secret hero because no one will ever know what you did and you’re fine with that.” He reddens slightly. “And that I was an idiot if I thought toppling you was a good idea, particularly at this point. God, she really laid down the law on me.”

Despite himself, Hux grins broadly. _Heh. I hope Ren overheard that._ “I see. So what are Senator Premy’s plans?”

Poe shrugs. “He didn’t say anything specific – he’s far too cunning to say anything that could incriminate him. But he was very clearly sounding me out. He seems to have some sort of non-confidence vote in mind – if he can get most of the members of the government to support him.”

“But that’s ridiculous. I’ve got the army’s support – “ Hux stops as he realises who he’s talking to. He may have the former First Order’s support, but the former Rebels are another matter. Even with Rey’s visible support, there are no doubt many of them who would like nothing better than hanging him.

“From what Senator Premy implied, reading between the lines,” says Poe, “it sounds to me like he’s looking for something to blackmail you with. Something so disgusting that it will permanently ruin your image as a potentially democratic leader – something that will make the Rebels refuse to support you.”

“So that a new leader would have to be found.”

“Yep. Guess who.”

“I see.” Hux cocks an eyebrow. “And you’re telling me about this just because Rey yelled at you?”

Poe opens his hands, palms up, on the table, as if disarmed. “Rey only drove home a point I already knew. We need to stick together, during this time, until we have some solid political structures in place. Political upheavals at this point could be dangerous – they might even tilt us into another war, if the army is pulled in.  And, even though I hate to say it, you’ve been doing mostly a good job, Hux. So I’m willing to put up with you until we hold the election – after that, it’s a completely different matter, of course,” he grins. Then his expression grows darker. “Also, I have no idea what’s going on in your life, but if Rey tells me you’re a good person I’ve no reason to believe you’re a monster. And I _really_ despise blackmail.”

He finishes his lasagne and stands up. “Need to run now. Chairman”.

Hux nods in acknowledgement and watches as Poe dashes out of the canteen. _Things are getting interesting._

***

“So this has been your Daddy’s plan all along, hasn’t it?”

She turns around where she is sitting at the desk, to see him watching her from the door to the apartment. “What?”

He strides up to her and seizes her by her arm (which is now covered in small bruises. _This is becoming a habit,_ she cannot but think). “Don’t play coy with me, Premy. You know perfectly well what you’re doing. You’ve known it all along. Teasing me on your Daddy’s orders. That must be quite a _close_ relationship you have.”

She shakes herself free from his grip and stands up, furious. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Daddy’s little slut. Willing to even whore herself out for him. I should have known,” he teases venomously.

And then, astonishingly, she slaps him. And stands staring at him, wild-eyed and shaking with rage.

He smiles inwardly. _No. She’s not in league with him._

***

He decides to give her the night off – she’s still upset by what he said, which would make things difficult. And anyway, there’s a call he needs to make.

Shutting himself in his bedroom, he gives instructions to the communications teams, and, a few minutes later, he receives the confirmation. A little crackling and humming, and the greenish light of the holobeam morphs into Rey’s warm, smiling face.

“Hux! We were going to call you tomorrow! How did you…?”

From somewhere off-camera comes the deep, familiar, growling voice: “Dameron blabbed. I told you he would.”

“Lord Ren. _So nice_ to hear from you after all this time,” says Hux, as acidly as he can.

Ren steps into the camera field, wearing a sardonic smile. “My apologies, Chairman. We have been _so busy_ conducting our survey of political conditions in hard-to-reach, backward, even, yes, _violent_ Outer Rim worlds. Forgive us if we found it hard to get in touch now and then.”

“Knock it off, you two,” says Rey, in slight exasperation. “We were really going to get in touch now we’re in Cloud City, Hux. There’s some urgent information you need to know about, about the Outer Rim. It's just we've been so busy getting our ship repaired – finding somewhere here that doesn’t charge you a kidney has been a nightmare.”

 _Not to mention that you’ve been so busy humping like rabbits,_ thinks Hux, noticing the fluffy white bathrobes they are both wearing. “What information?”

“We’d rather not speak about this on the holobeam. We’ll be in Coruscant in three or four days’ time, and we’ll talk about it then.” Rey smiles mischievously. “And we also need to talk about other things, I think? Is there anyone you want to introduce us to?”

Hux mentally facepalms. _Bloody Dameron and his bloody big mouth._


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux gets down to business. I think the fact that Ren and Rey and Poe are taking an interest in his private life is making him hurry up...

“So tell me about the pain.”

“What is this, _therapy_?” she snarls.

They are sitting in his living room, after dinner, in their now usual seats: she on the sofa, he on the armchair across from her. He smiles slightly, sideways. “In a way. Only more fun.”

“More _fun_?”

“For me.” He leans forwards. “The pain. You have never harmed yourself?”

“No.” She sits back against the sofa cushion, arms crossed. If this is going to happen – and Hux seems determined that it’s going to happen – she’s decided that she’s going to answer his questions as aseptically and with as much detachment as she can muster. As though it were someone else. She can do that, after all, detachment. She’s done it all her life. “I tried, when I was younger. Didn’t work. I realised I needed someone else to do it. To me.”

“And you started provoking it. Physical punishment, when you were little. Those accidents that were no such thing. Then seeking it out in… more specialised contexts.”

“Is that a question?”

He smiles again. “No. Obviously. I’ve read what you wrote. Do you enjoy it?”

“What, your reading my private documents? Not really, no.”

“Do you enjoy the pain? Does it arouse you? Sexually?”

She purses her lips. “It’s – complicated. But I would say not. Not in a straightforward way, anyway.”

“Then why do you think you need it?”

She looks down for a second, then back up, with sudden fierceness. “The Orthyx files. They are not in the computer system, even at the highest levels of encryption. They are physical. Snoke hid them somewhere, in his archives. Physically. I need to see them.” Hux says nothing. “I need to go outside this room to see them.”

“I know,” says Hux.

“You know?”

“I know about Snoke’s personal archive. Nobody was ever allowed there. I know where it is.”

“Then you have to take me there.”

He steeples his fingers. “Tit for tat, Premy. Why do you need the pain?”

She balls her hands into fists, frustrated – with him, with herself for having placed herself in this situation. With the wave of shame that is crashing over her, diminishing her before his eyes. She forces herself to answer, to pay him. “I… feel numb. Most of the time. Cut off from the world. So much that sometimes I doubt whether I exist at all. Whether I am alive.”

She falls suddenly silent, appalled at how much she has said. She expects his mockery, but he is looking at her intently. “So that’s why you need the pain.” He says softly. “To feel. To feel _something_.”

She stares at him, the way he is looking at her with what seems like an odd mix of eagerness and kindness, and she realises that he understands. He _knows_.

He stands up and walks towards her. Standing in front of her where she sits, he gently gets hold of her chin, making her look up at him. “You have done this before,” she whispers.

“Yes.”

“You like it.”

A beat. “I need it. Like you do.” He tightens his grip on her chin, and gently but firmly pushes her back against the seat. “Open your legs.”

She can’t tear her eyes away from him. Her legs part as if by their own accord. “Place your hands by your sides.” She does. “I’m going to hurt you now, Premy,” he says softly. “And then I’ll make you cum. If you don’t want me to do it, you can get up and go to your room. I will still allow you to see the files you are looking for.” He looks into her eyes. “But I think you need me to do it. Do you?”

She nods.

“Say it.”

“Yes.” She gulps under his expectant gaze. “Yes. I need you to do it.”

“ _Sir._ ”

“Sir.”

He smiles wryly, and, without releasing her chin, leans forward and pinches her through the fabric of her trousers, between the thighs, her folds. Hard. She gasps, breathless with the sudden pain.

“Good girl,” he whispers in her ear, his voice hot against her. “Take it. Take it for me.” He pinches harder, and the pain blooms in her belly like a flaming flower. She is panting now, her heart beating fast, her body covered in pricks of sensation.

He brings his other hand to her right breast, caressing its curve where it rises beneath her jacket. Cupping it. She parts her lips at the sudden intrusion of pleasure, throws her head back against the cushion, and from somewhere deep inside her comes a helpless moan.

He says nothing now, but just stares intently at her, following her every expression to alternate between the pain and the pleasure which he applies with either hand. Gauging. Controlling. She can hear his breathing, so close, somehow _taut_ , as if he were struggling to keep something tightly coiled within him that way.

Finally, he suddenly releases his pinch from her folds, and she feels the blood rushing back in, as he now pinches her nipple through her clothes and moves his mouth in to kiss her, hard, and his right hand slides over her sore cunt, squeezing slightly, and she’s overwhelmed with sensation, with feeling, and it’s all happening so quickly and from every direction that she can’t keep track, she can’t control it, and he’s suddenly everywhere, his hands on her, hurting her, caressing her, his tongue probing her mouth, and his fingers keep pinching and stroking, over and over and over unti it’s too much too much too much she can’t hold it she can’t –

She comes against his hand. And she can feel him smile in triumph as her cry is muffled by his mouth.

***

When it subsides, he’s still standing there, looking at her in some concern. “You all right?” he asks.

She nods, sits up. Falls silent for an instant. Then, bemused: “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Ask me. You caught me spying on you. And you’re the Chairman. Nobody would… question anything you did.”

He is serious as he answers. “I don’t do that, Premy. I may like pushing you – obviously, I do. But I would never force anyone against their will.” He holds out his hand to help her off her seat. “But that’s enough for tonight.”

She takes his hand and stumbles as he pulls her up, so that he has to hold her up as she falls against him. They look at each other for an electric second, with bated breath. Then the moment passes and they both step back, slightly embarrassed.

“Sleep well, Premy”, he says as he moves towards the door to his room.

She turns and looks at him. “Thank you.”  And it’s clear to both of them that it’s not just his good wishes that she’s thanking him for.

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay updating - crazy week.
> 
> So, looks like Hux is going all Hannibal Lecter on Premy. (In the questioning sense, not in the eating people sense).

“So tell me about your father.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you _sure_ this isn’t therapy?”

He smiles. “I’m curious. I had a… difficult father myself.”

His reply catches her off-guard – she hadn’t expected such an open admission. She knows, of course, about General Brendol Hux, who was renowned and feared throughout the galaxy for his brutal ways. And who has been dead for years. “My father is… difficult too,” she ventures. “But I think you already know that.”

He smiles again. “Indeed.”

“He called again?”

“Oh yes.”

“It used to infuriate me, when I was little. Eventually, I gave up. It’s something he’s going to do, so I expect it. And – adjust things accordingly.”

“Something he’s going to do? You mean, meddle in your life?”

“Exactly. I’m a family asset, after all. He can’t see why he shouldn’t make the most of it.” She sighs. “What did he want this time?”

He makes a little dismissive wave with his hand. “Oh, just polite threats. Nothing unexpected.” He tilts his head. “You haven’t got in touch with him since your… arrest.”

“No.” She says nothing, then sees that he’s going to pry further. _Might as well._ “My father never wanted me to go into academia. He hounded me for years, insisting that I leave the university and take up what he saw as my proper position in the world.”

“In politics?”

“Or married to a politician. Eventually, I agreed. I accepted the position which he got me. So he should be satisfied now.”

He gazes at her, leaning half his face on his hand. “You know he’s never going to be satisfied, don’t you?”

“Of course. I did what he wanted because I had my own reasons, not because I wanted to please him. I stopped trying to please him a long time ago.”

“Ah, yes. Your own reasons.” He straightens up again. “You told me you were seven when your mother died?”

“Disappeared. Yes.”

“You had lived with her. And, I imagine, you went to live with your father then. What was that like?”

She takes a deep breath. “My mother had been my father’s third wife. His first two wives were both politicians’ daughters, whom had he married basically to advance in his career. He already had children – my brothers Russ and Cei, my sister Issa. They are all much older than me – Russ was seventeen when I was born. They saw my father’s marriage to my mother as a mistake.”

“How so?”

“There was no political benefit to it. I think, for once in his life, my father fell in love. Or in lust, at any rate. It was – resented.”

“I see. But the marriage didn’t last long?”

“Three years. My mother left, taking me with her. To my father’s family’s relief.”

“And then your mother was gone. And you were dropped back in there.”

“Yes.”

He stands up, moves towards her. “Must have been hard.” With threatening kindness. Or a kind threat.

She looks away. _No. You’re not going there._ Says nothing.

Again, he grasps her chin, gently. “What was it they called you, your siblings?” he says softly. “The spawn? The gold-digger’s daughter? The little bitch?”

She looks at him, shocked at the accuracy of his guesses, her eyes brimming with tears despite herself. Angry, so angry that he’s prying into this, that it still hurts so much, after all this time. “Stop it,” she breathes.

But there’s no way in hell he’s going to stop now, now he’s seen her pain. What he had wanted all along. “And your father did nothing about it, did he? Just threw you into a room with some useless nanny to take care of you and forgot about you. Until you grew up and he realised that you had turned into a nice piece of flesh which he could sell for a good price.”

“Please. Stop.” Almost desperately. She tries to shake his grasp off, but he only tightens.

“But you tried to make him care for you, didn’t you? You wanted him to _love_ you. You couldn’t understand why he didn’t. And you thought there must be something very wrong with you. When did you start to go numb? After six months, one year? When they packed you off to boarding school like the unwelcome stranger you were?”

Tears are streaming down her face now. “No. Please.”

“And _still_ you thought it was your fault. And you were lonely, so lonely, weren’t you? And that’s when you found out, in those long nights in the dormitory, touching yourself in the dark, silently, worrying about waking the others. How it felt _better_ when you were rougher, when you went past that point, when it _hurt._ What did you think about? Being beaten? Being whipped?” He sees how she suddenly goes very white. “Oh. I see. You _actually_ were beaten – flogged? That kind of school, was it? And you got off remembering the punishment. _Sought it out._ ”

He’s smiling now, a cruel, oddly satisfied smile as he watches her break under his words.

“And do you know why, Premy?” He leans forward as she weeps wordlessly. Whispers into her ear: “ _Because you are a_ _filthy slut who deserves to be hurt_.”

She cries out, a low keening sound, somewhere between pain and relief, and he swoops down, jerking her head back by the hair, roughly, destroying her tidy bun, his other hand pinching hard between her legs. “Wet like the slut you are,” he hisses, then, still grabbing her hair, turns her around and down, so that she slides down the sofa, and she falls kneeling on the floor, her torso still on the seat of the sofa.

One of his hands releases her hair, which springs out in a frizzy mess as he moves down and presses down on her back, crushing her breasts against the sofa. With his other hand, he pulls her trousers down, displaying her plain dark blue briefs. Which he also tugs down.

And before she even realises what he’s doing, he starts smacking her bare bottom. Over and over and over. With the other hand, he forces her head against the soft cushion, smothering her cries.

And then, as if a dam has burst, her cries turn into sobs – deep, body-wracking sobs, completely beyond her control, so that, for once in her life, she is beyond the hurt, the guilt, the shame, the sadness. Lost in the sensation, in the heat of his hand on her skin, the burning, blessed pain raining down on her and bringing her closer and closer and closer –

Somewhere far away, his voice, like a tolling bell in the storm. “That’s it. That’s it. Let it go.”

She collapses completely, her knees sliding further back, her stomach slithering, her hands, which she had been clenching, two limp, spent creatures.

And he is holding her in his arms, kneeling too, kissing her face, kissing her tears away, soothing, reassuring. She is so shocked, so battered by the tidal wave that he has brought upon her – which he has brought out of her – that she can’t even react, can’t even question the oddness of it. She just relaxes and allows herself to be held.  Comforted by the words which he murmurs in her ear now, over and over.

“Good girl. Good girl.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

_I need to get out of here. This can’t go on._

The words have been hammering in her mind since she woke up and, after that first moment of blessed unawareness, it all came back to her with chill, sick accuracy – what she said, what Hux did to her, and worst of all, how she reacted.

_I can’t look at him. I can never look at him again in the face after last night._

She is thinking of ways to hack into the system that regulates the door codes in the building so that she can get out before the team of nincompoops who are tracking what she does realise, when she steps into the apartment’s living room, only to find him standing there.

_Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit._

“Morning, Premy,” he greets her cheerily, just glimpsing up from a document he is looking over. “Slept well?”

As if nothing had happened. “Er, yes. Thank you,” she replies, nonplussed. She stands there, awkwardly, while he leafs through the pages, until she finally clears her throat. “Sorry, I was going to…” and gestures towards her computer on the far side of his desk.

“Ah, no, different plan today,” he answers. He seems to think of something, asks: “Don’t you have breakfast?”

“The, erm, guards usually bring me some coffee. If I ask them to. And pastries.”

Hux blinks for a second, perplexed by the thought of his personal guards delivering baked goods. “Never mind, we’ll get something en route. We’re going to Ekumene House this morning.”

“Ekumene House? That’s where…?”

“That’s the old palace, where Snoke took up residence when he came to Coruscant. And where he kept his archives, yes.”

Her smile is so immediate and enormous that he is taken aback for a second. She even starts to twitch slightly in impatience, he notices. “Wonderful! Shall we go then?” she urges him. “I’ll get my jacket.”

“Erm – don’t you need to take anything? Notes, something?” he calls after her as she ducks into her room.

She grins as she reappears in her jacket. “Oh, I’ve been obsessing about this so much, I could tell you all the data I have by heart now.”

And, as she springs out happily ahead of him, he’s completely certain that she means it literally.

 

***

"A car? Are you _insane_?”

Her outburst at seeing his official car is so unexpected that he turns in surprise. _What?_

“Oh, of course, I forgot, you’re not from here. Traffic from here to Ekumene House will be a nightmare at this time. We’d be better off walking. Or taking the overground.”

Hux – who, it is true, had never staid for very long periods on Coruscant before, and who can count the number of times he has left the government building since taking office on one hand – looks silently at one of his escorts, another Coruscant native. Who silently nods.

“Very well then. The overground it is.”

So they walk all the way up to the overground station hovering next to the higher floors of the building, followed by Hux’s two escorts, who, it is becoming increasingly clear to Premy, are no longer surprised by any decision their boss takes. The government workers coming and going on the platform are another matter, though – they stare in shock as they recognise their red-headed leader in this unlikely place. And, when they board their car, a hush falls which turns into a sort of mute mass escape as most of the passengers quietly move further down to avoid being near him.

 _They’re afraid of him. And no wonder_.

But Hux seems to be, or more likely deliberately makes himself, oblivious to the effect of his physical presence on the public. He sits down on a seat next to a window and gestures for her to sit across from him, while the two escorts discreetly position themselves beyond eavesdropping distance, next to the doors.

“It’s the first time I take it,” he says, smiling slightly, as the car doors shut and the convoy starts to pull out of the station, gathering speed, then gliding smoothly on. He looks down at the vertiginous,  miles-deep drop, the maze of plummeting, cloud-clad metal and concrete and polyscon. “It reminds me of the forest, in a way.”

“The forest?”

“Arkanis. My homeworld. A large part of it is covered in forests. Trees so high that people build on them. Not quite as high as this, though.”

She hesitates, but he seems to be inviting questions, or at least doesn't seem averse to them. “How long did you live there?”

“I was born there, and I left the planet when I was – I must have been fifteen or so. At the end of the civil war. I haven’t been back since then.”

“Don’t you miss it? You spent your entire childhood there.”

A shadow crosses his features. “My childhood was… complicated. When I left, I couldn’t wait to get out of there.” He pauses for a second. “But in some ways, I miss it terribly. Yes.” He looks at her, rather obviously changing the topic. “You were raised here. I don’t expect you took public transport often though?”

She smiles. “Not really. But I would sneak out now and then, when I could shake my carers off. I would always get punished afterwards for disappearing like that, but it was worth it. My family thought I was up to no good, but all I would do was bring a book and just sit in the circular line, reading. Just to get some respite.”

He looks at her, and opens his mouth, and seems to be about to say something, to tell her about some similar experience of his own, but thinks better about it.

  _Tell me,_ she thinks, and suddenly the memory floods back to her of what happened last night, what he said – what he _knew_ – and, once the burning shame of it passes, she resolves to find out. _If you won’t tell me, I’ll find it anyway._

***

They got off at the station near the park in front of Ekumene House, one of the rare unbuilt areas in the planetary city that is Coruscant, left so for obvious security reasons. Ekumene House has been the seat of government on the planet for centuries, and generations of security officers have stubbornly insisted on not allowing _anything_ to be built near it – a feat otherwise unheard of in such an overpopulated world.

When they reach the gates, an officer lets them in, and guides them through what seems to be a servants’ entrance at the basement level. “I didn’t want to attract any undue attention,” Hux tells her grimly, low enough that the guards and the officer won’t hear. “I don’t want anyone to know that we are messing around in Snoke’s stuff. Anything that has to do with him generates instant reactions which I’d rather not deal with now. It’s almost as if we were summoning the devil, for God’s sake.”

She nods, being fully aware that Snoke still manages to strike terror among most, even from beyond the tomb, and that many – particularly former Resistance fighters – are not convinced _at all_ that Hux has reneged on his former master.

The officer leads them through what seems to be endless maintenance corridors beneath the palace, the sort of place where pipes and boilers and manholes and sumps are, out of sight, far from the marble halls above. Finally, they reach a very old metal-cage lift. “It’s the third floor,” he says. “At the end of the corridor, to the right.”

Hux nods, walks into the lift with her, and raises his hand to stop his two escorts from following. “Just wait for us here. We should be back in a few hours.”

The escorts look at each other doubtfully, then nod, resigned.

 

***

 

The lift door slams shut, and, with a shuddering start, the groaning metal cage takes off and they are plunged into the darkness as it hurtles, creaking and groaning, through the building’s innards. After a few pitch-dark minutes, the lift stutters and shakes again, and comes to a halt. Hux forces the door open again, and they step out into the gloom of a dimly-lit corridor, covered in what looks like polished black basalt.

“This way,” says Hux, who has obviously been here before, and leads her to the right, down the dark corridor, until they reach an open doorway.

“I asked captain Jodyo to take down the alarms and deactivate the recording systems for the next five hours. Will that be enough?”

“Er, yes, I think so.”

They walk through the doorway into what seems to be the circular death-chamber of some cyclopean ancient king. The basalt slabs climb all the way up the walls to converge in a domed, hive-like ceiling, lit by a wreath of dim lights hidden along the ledge that runs all the way around the circumference. The room is completely bare, with the monstrous exception of a massive, dark canopied bed, so huge that a human being would need a ladder to climb into it.

“This is…?”

“Snoke’s bedroom. Yes.” He’s clearly uneasy and tense, remembering. “I was here once, before. Not for… Snoke’s usual purposes, here. He had… different tastes. But he wanted us to know that he could do anything to us, any time he wanted.”

“Us?”

“Ren and me. He would usually work on us as a pair. He thought it would be more effective. Which it was.” He pauses for a second. “He didn’t realise that it would work both ways, though.”

He’s almost musing to himself now, and she’s not sure she understands all the connotations of what he’s saying, but she stores it away, in any case, for future reference. She has never met Lord Ren, but it’s obvious that she needs to find more about him, and soon.

She looks around. There is another door in the circular chamber, across from the bed, which obviously leads out. “The archives…?”

He moves up next to the massive headboard, which is up against the curved wall, and as large as the side of a small house. “If I remember rightly…” He slides his hand out of sight from her, up and down, then smiles. “Ah.”

There is a creaking sound, somewhere, and suddenly Hux sidles behind the headboard and disappears. She stares, dumbfounded, until she hears his impatient voice, calling out seemingly from behind the wall.

“Premy, are you coming or not?”

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there's being so little action so far, but these two are so buttoned-up and self-contained and really, really cautious that it's taking them a looooong time to move things along. Luckily, they'll be getting visitors soon :)
> 
> If the secret archives sound similar like the library in the Name of the Rose (or Borges's library, which is where Umberto Eco took his inspiration), that's because they are.

She approaches the headboard, where the wall behind seems to have disappeared, leaving a gaping black hole in its place.

“This way,” comes Hux’s voice, and she follows it into the darkness, gingerly treading down a narrow, slightly sloping corridor. There is a faint glimmer at the end, which turns to be the light in a room, where Hux is waiting for her.

“The secret archives,” he says, as she steps into what looks like the architectural version of a cell in a hive, a hexagonal room, with high walls covered in shelves that go all the way up to the ceiling. And all the shelves are full of old-fashioned file boxes, neatly lined so that they almost look like brickwork. Across from the entrance, there is another threshold, leading into what looks like an identical cell, with two thresholds leading into another cell on either side, through which she can glimpse another cell, and another, and another, and another, branching into the dark again, lit by the same dim lights. A labyrinth. She stares in amazement.

“The files are all labelled,” says Hux, looking at her. “I hope you’re as clear about your data as you said you were, Premy. We could very easily get lost in there if you don’t know what we are looking for.”

“Yes. Of course,” she replies, gathering her wits. She looks at the labels on the shelves, making sense of the complex classification system. “So… it should be that way.” And walks into the maze.

“You’ve been here before, then?” she asks as they move down the silent corridors.

“Only once. Snoke brought us here – I mean, Ren and me. He wanted to show us how much shameful secret information he had about everyone who mattered in the galaxy which only he could access. A display of power.”

“Information about you, too?”

“Yes.” He becomes intensely expressionless at this, which she has realised is what he does when he becomes upset, so she leaves the topic, and they walk in silence, with her checking the labels on the shelves until they finally reach the section she was looking for.

“I think it’s here,” she says, looking up at the upper shelves. “Should be up there.”

“Ah. Yes. I think we’ll need to –“ and he holds his hands out, fingers interlaced like a stirrup, to help her up. “This was built to fit Snoke’s height.”

She steps up on his proffered hands, steadying herself with her own hand on the shelves as he hoists her up with an ease that surprises her – he is clearly so much stronger than he seems.

“Got it,” she says, awkwardly grabbing the dusty box, and he lowers her. Unexpectedly, he holds her thigh to stabilise her as she comes down, and she loses her balance, unnerved by his sudden touch there, and collapses on top of him, dropping the box, which opens, spilling its contents.

“Careful there.” But she is staring at the files scattered all over the floor, which seem to be, for the most part, pictures – what are clearly, even not looking very close, very graphic and explicit pictures.

“What the –?” They bend to pick up the pictures, and gape at them in a mix of fascination of horror.

“I don’t think this has anything to do with the Orthyx project,” she says faintly, after a few seconds.

“Is that Premier Orjion? The one wearing the – ? Riding the –?

“Yes.” Premy picks up the empty box, looks at the label. “Fuck. Wrong box. Help me again?”

He lifts her up again, and this time she brings down another box with no further ado. Checks it twice. “This is the right one.”

“God, I hope so. I’m never going to be able to unsee that.”

She opens the box, which contains a number of sheaves of documents. She takes one out, eagerly leafs through it – and her expression visibly lights up in triumph and relief. “Yes. Yes. This is it!”

She is going to take all the other sheaves out, when she feels his grip around her wrist. “Put it back, Premy.” Steely.

“What?”

“Put those documents back in the box. These are extremely classified files. I’ll go through them later. On my own.”

“ _What_?” Helpless with fury and disbelief. “ _But you promised –“_

“I promised nothing _,_ Premy. I told you I might be interested in the Orthyx project. I am. I told you that I would allow you to find the files you need. Which I have. But this is highly sensitive material, and I’m going to read it first.” With his other hand, he pulls the sheaf from her grasp and stuffs it back in the box. “I’m not letting this get out of control. You’ll know what you need to know when and as I decide.”

He holds her gaze as she seethes, daring her to defy him – he can practically feel the violence raging in her, her urge to tear his throat out in fury. _Come on, kitten. Bring out your claws._

But she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes for a second, and then turns up the palm of the hand whose wrist he is grasping, conceding.

He nods, hiding his disappointment that he has not driven her into an outburst, but not really surprised: he recognises the signs of someone who has had to repress and conceal her impulses all of her life. And he’s certain, because that someone has been him, that right now, behind that proper, polite, distance façade of hers, she is planning the way to get back at him.

Which, he realises, he is actually rather looking forward to.

 

***

As soon as she can get back to her own computer and is left alone, she searches for it (hiding with ridiculous ease the search from the imbeciles Hux has set to spy on her).

First, the official facts, which she already knows. The dead general, his father. His years in Arkanis academy, then his meteoric ascent through the ranks in the First Order.

But she’s looking for the dirt, first, which is relatively easy: she hadn’t heard the rumours because she had deliberately isolated herself so much from her previous circles when she was in university, but they are pervasive. The illegitimacy, the low-class nameless mother (a cook? Could that be true?) His father’s brutal reputation. His first kill when he was barely twelve.

Then, after the dirt, the harder part. The unsaid.

There are some things that are not hard to deduce, reading between the lines, and from what she has learnt about Hux so far. A father with a reputation as a brutal general almost certainly meant a brutal father, too. Which, paired with being a bastard sired on a cook, and his early training as a boy being taught things that would have broken even grown men, gives her an idea of the environment in which he grew up. What had happened to the nameless mother, she wonders.

 Then there is the First Order, and Snoke. Clearly, he never was a true believer, as proven by the fact that he has refused to become the next Supreme Leader, as he could so easily have done. And there are also the rumours about Snoke’s death, some wildly imaginative, others highlighting the very real inconsistencies in the official story. Something fishy there, definitely, which she’ll have to investigate further.

And finally, there’s the matter of his sexuality. She has some idea of the way it runs, of course, but she wants to see his track record – spouses, girlfriends or boyfriends, lovers, use of prostitutes. Nothing at all, apparently – the man seems to be completely celibate. There are rumours about him and Snoke, him and Ren, him and Ren and Snoke, him and Ren’s girlfriend, him and Ren and Ren’s girlfriend, most of which sound rather unlikely to her (although now she’s _really_ curious about Lord Ren and this girlfriend of his). None of the rumours, interestingly, have hit on what she actually knows for certain about the sort of thing Hux likes – most of them have him pegged as a bottom, which makes her smile wryly (and actually indulge in an odd little fantasy for a moment).

She does find something, though, sifting through his personal files (cracking the code to access his computer from hers was child’s play – it really is ridiculous, the level of security they use here). Some porn, of the painful kind she expected. But also, she notices, a vast number of items – documents, books, films, papers – on female physiology and sexuality, in clinical detail. Almost as if he were writing a dissertation on the topic – or rather, she thinks, as if he were studying the field to launch a military campaign. Because it seems very clear to her what the purpose of all this exhaustive documentation is – to acquire knowledge, mastery, the power he seems to need as essentially as breathing. To learn about the right buttons to push.

Pain. And pleasure. 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

He closes the dossier which he has just finished reading, and leaves it on the desk of his office. Stunned.

And for once he thinks, with slightly panicked urgency: _I need to talk about this with Ren._

He looks at the folder, with almost physical wariness, as if it were one of those small critters that look harmless but actually contain so much poison in their tiny bodies that they could kill an entire city. And another, odder thought comes.

 _What on earth am I going to tell Premy?_

***

She is pacing like a caged animal when he returns to his apartment that night. And quite as furious. She has been doing essentially nothing all day – the inane dirty tasks that Hux ordered her to do are practically finished now, and the new ones are very obviously just ways to keep her busy – and she is maddened with frustration.

“How long are you going to keep this up?” she asks as he comes through the door.

“And good evening to you too,” he says as he takes off his coat and goes to his bedroom to hang it. When he comes back, he realises that she is practically snarling at him, a wildcat. His groin is already stirring. “Did you have a good day?”

“Well, let me see. I’m trapped in your rooms, spying for you, only there is nothing left to spy and you broke your promise of letting me see the Orthyx files and I’m going out of my mind. So, all in all, not that good a day, no.”

“That’s a shame,” he smiles coolly. “I suppose you’re not in the mood for dinner in the canteen, then?”

“No, I’m bloody not in the mood for dinner in the canteen. I’m in the mood for getting out of here and getting on with my life and _reading what I came here to find._ I’ve kept my part of the deal – keep yours.”

“As I’ve told you before, you seem to be under the impression that there was some kind of _deal_ between us. You are a thief and a spy caught red-handed. Any deal there might be here is strictly of the legal kind. Let’s just say you’re getting time off for good behaviour.”

“And you are the prosecutor in all this, I imagine.”

“Prosecutor _and_ judge. Yes.” He smiles again, that insufferable smug smile of his, and she really, really wants to strangle him.

And indeed, it’s only because she’s too far from him that she doesn’t try it. But, before she realises what she’s doing, she picks up a vase from a low table near her, and hurls it at his head.

His reflexes are too ingrained and fast for her to have any real chance of hitting him, but her aim is surprisingly good, and he is forced to duck. _And there we have it,_ he thinks, delighted.

He’s expecting her attack now, looking forward to the opportunity to overcome her as she throws herself against him, to grab those slim wrists and flip her over and force her into surrender, helpless. But she holds her ground. Fuming and glaring at him, but, disappointingly, restraining herself.

“I imagine it’s something you’re used to,” he goads her. “After all, your entire life has been decided for you in advance. The only difference is that now it’s me doing the deciding, not Daddy.”

She stares at him in silence for a second. Then replies: “You tell me about it, Armitage _Hux._ When did your father decide that you were good enough to carry his precious surname after all? When he forced you to join the military academy?”

He flushes so quickly and so dramatically with fury that it’s frightening to watch – the pale, cool man suddenly taken over by a sort of crimson dybbuk. In the blink of an eye, he’s crossed the room and is seizing her by the throat, so tight that she can hardly breathe.

“ _Don’t ever speak about that again,”_ he growls, and she even though she had known in theory, she truly realises, for the first time, that this is a man who is capable of killing. Who has killed.

She looks into those piercing, furious blue eyes as she struggles for breath, and a wave of despair overcomes her. Locked. Trapped. Trapped her entire life. With no way to escape. She opens her mouth and croaks out: “I may be my father’s pawn. But at least I’m not his bastard.”

His fingers tighten even more, cutting off her breath, and she closes her eyes, fully expecting the darkness, the end. The way out. _Fuck you._

But she’s dropped. And falls, like a sack, to the hard floor.

She opens her eyes, to see him standing over her, panting hard, flushed and wild-eyed still. He frightens her, she realises – and also realises, with a certain detached fascination, that it arouses her. She had wished that he would kill her and put an end to it all a few seconds ago. Now she wishes that he would fuck her. Fuck her hard, into oblivion.

He stares at her, filled with so much white-hot anger that it feels as if he’s going to burst any moment – he hadn’t felt it like this in years. And sees how her expression morphs from anger to bleakness to fear to desire, fluid like water, her feelings overrunning and mingling and flowing into a dark current of lust. Calling out to his own dark desires.

She props herself up on her shoulders, parting her legs to do so, and the smell of her cunt wafts up to him, pungent and sudden. And before he realises what he’s doing, he leans forward, grabs her by the forearm, and pulls her roughly up. “ _You fucking bitch.”_ And kisses, hard, like he did that first time, only now he’s not provoking her, he can’t help himself, he needs to hurt her and take her and kiss her and plunge into her softness, into her darkness –

And she yields to him as he digs his fingers into her, his tongue probing her mouth, his body, his maleness overwhelming her, her whole body crying out, giving up, surrendering to his hands and his mouth and his hardness and the pain and how _good_ it feels –

And then, suddenly, she remembers the files, and his broken promise, and the locked door, no exit, no way out, like cold water poured on her, and she gasps for breath –

And knees him in the groin. Hard.

This time, for once, it does catch him off-guard. He cries out and bends over in pain, and she steps back, stunned at what she has just done, in mounting panic.

Turns and runs towards the door, which is unlocked since his return and opens. She dashes out blindly into the corridor – _need to get out need to get out need to get out NOW –_

Only to run headlong into a tall, dark bulk that hardly moves as she barges against it.

Her wrists are firmly gripped again, all her twisting and writhing and kicking useless as she is dragged back into the apartment, where Hux is still coughing and gasping, his hands on his knees.

Who looks up, red-faced, at the deep, mocking voice.

“This yours?” asks Ren.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they're back! 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting!

_Impeccable timing as always, Ren_ , thinks Hux, as he tries to gather himself again, scowling at Ren’s smirk. Premy struggles against the larger man, who only lets her go to sit her down on the sofa, standing very obviously between her and the door, so that she won’t be tempted to try anything again. She, too, scowls at Ren, and for similar reasons.

Ren takes a good look at her for the first time. “I know you,” he says, frowning slightly in recognition. “Aren’t you Senator Premy’s daughter?”

“Yes,” she mutters. _And you are Senator Organa’s unbearable son, the Boy Wonder,_ she thinks, remembering his arrogant behaviour the few times they had met. “We have met. When you lived on Coruscant.”

He smiles lightly, as if amused by the same memory. “I must have been pretty insufferable back then.”

“Back then?” says Hux, who has now recovered and is back to his default formality. “Good to see you, Lord Ren. Although I wish you had notified me in advance of your arrival.”

“Rey insisted on giving you a surprise.”

“Where is she, by the way?”

Ren, Premy notices, stiffens slightly at what seems to be such an innocuous question. Then he smiles again, this time a more twisted smile. “She’s on her way. Picking up something she wants to give you. A present.”

Hux frowns, and Premy looks at them, wondering at the odd dynamics between both men. A mixture of obvious rivalry, hostility, and yet – a sort of prickly fellowship too. Respect. Affection, even.

Now more than ever, she’s curious about this Rey person. But her thoughts return quickly to her botched escape, to her frustration. No doubt these are friends of Hux’s, so, logically, they will either implicitly abet her captor, or even actively aid him. Not that this is strange in any way, given what she knows about Lord Ren’s reputation. The fact that his instant reaction was to catch her as she ran and return her to Hux as if she were some sort of fleeing animal says all she needs to know.

She groans inwardly, feeling anguish wash over her again as the doors are re-bolted and she is back in the hole in which Hux has put her. Trapped. _Trapped._ She feels a pang of fury and desperation so strong that she could punch through a wall right now.

Ren turns to look at her sharply, as if he knew what was crossing her mind. “So what’s going on here?” he asks Hux.

“None of your business, Ren.”

“Really? I come back to find the daughter of one of the most powerful men on the planet running away from the Chairman’s private quarters and you bent over with your balls in your mouth. That does sound like a politically charged situation to me, not to mention the security breach.” He turns to Premy. “Are you all right?”

She is taken aback for a second – she would have expected Ren not to give a shit even if he caught Hux raping her, but his concern is obvious. “I am not hurt,” she replies.

Ren raises an eyebrow at her parsimony, looks at Hux, whose scowl is deepening by the second.

“Look,” says Hux, “this _really_ isn’t the best time. Perhaps we can meet later, when I have dealt with this situation. Now if you could please…”

“ _What_ situation, Hux?” Ren looks at Hux, then Premy – both of whom cross their arms in a sullen silence. He sighs. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

He strides towards Premy, grasps her chin, forcing her to look at him – and suddenly it’s as if a swift hand sweeps across the surface of her thoughts, skimming and gathering. And then, just as swiftly, it’s gone.

Ren turns slowly towards Hux with a malicious smile. “ _Well_.”

 Hux is now becoming distinctly red – it’s not clear whether from anger or from embarrassment. “Lord Ren,” he says in his stuffiest tones, “as your commander, I _order you_ to leave this room _right now._ You will be summoned in due time once this situation has been dealt with. Your presence is _not_ required.”

“Armitage Hux, the greatest anal retentive who ever lived, the man who is unable to even take a crap without following the procedure in the official regulations, is keeping a woman in his apartments against her will for what are _clearly nefarious_ _purposes_ and you expect me to miss it? Seriously?"

“ _What????_ ”

The young woman holding a box is standing in the threshold, apparently stunned into stillness by what she has just heard, her expression a mixture of shock, indignation, and, very near the surface, impending fury. An expression, Premy notices, that makes both men wince.

“You are doing _what_ , Hux?” cries the young woman – Rey, no doubt – as she rushes into the room in with frankly alarming decisiveness. Then she notices Premy sitting on the sofa on the side and she turns to her in concern. “Are you all right?”

Premy nods, stating that she is unharmed for the second time in a few minutes. Rey, slightly appeased, sits on the sofa, placing the box between them, and glares up at Hux. “Poe had told us that you had a girlfriend, but you _do_ know that being a girlfriend is a voluntary position, don’t you, Hux?”

“ _She’s not my girlfriend_ ” / “ _I’m not his girlfriend_ ” reply Hux and Premy, chiming in simultaneous indignation.

Hux is going to say something snarky about it being rather rich of Rey to give lessons about consent in relationships when he notices the lid on the box. Which is shaking.

“What. Is. That?”

He looks on in horror as the lid falls off the box. And out _slithers_ – there is no better word – a tiny, tawny tabby cat, hardly a few weeks old. Which immediately starts to sharpen its paws on the expensive white leather of the sofa cushions.

Rey smiles and coos at the kitten, then looks up at Hux, beaming. “Isn’t she lovely? I found her in Cloud City…”

“It was _her_ idea,” says Ren, grinning in wicked glee at Hux’s reaction.

“… and I just thought she would be perfect for you…”

“That's because it’s _orange_ ,” adds Ren helpfully. “You know, like you.”

“… and she’s called Millicent. But you can call her Milly, if you like.”

Rey is beaming in utter delight. Ren is clearly enjoying this more than is remotely decent. And Hux looks as if he’s about to go apoplectic.

The kitten seems to get dizzy by the sudden unlimited freedom of the sofa expanse, and claws at the leather more frantically, even biting into it. Hux opens his mouth and is about to shout something about turning the cat into mince as soon as possible –

But then Premy leans forward and picks up the kitten. She creates a small confined space between her thigh and the sofa armrest, and carefully places her there. And, astonishingly, the cat seems to calm down, and even starts to purr in contentment.

“Kittens miss their mothers,” explains Premy, caressing the tiny creature’s head. “You need to replicate a similar environment. They prefer to be in a restricted enclosure.”

She looks up to see the three faces staring at her in surprise. Rey in surprised delight. Ren in surprised curiosity. And Hux… It’s hard to read what Hux is feeling right now, but she’s definitely caught him by surprise, too.

“What? I used to take care of stray kittens when I was in school,” she says, slightly defensively.

It is Rey who finally breaks the silence, leaning warmly towards her. “I’m Rey. And it’s so nice to meet you…?”

“Una. Una Premy.”

Rey places her hand on Premy’s arm, looks at her expression, then looks back at the men. “Are you hungry? Because I’m starving.”

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

The horrifying prospect of having to sit down to dinner with Ren and Rey, who will instantly proceed to probe and pry and dissect _in front of Premy_ makes Hux gather himself and pull as much rank as he is capable of.

“No. Lieutenant Premy is under arrest. And under my personal supervision _as the Chairman of the Galactic Council._ She’s not leaving these rooms.” He glares at Ren and Rey, as if daring them to defy him, and glances at Premy. Who actually seems relieved to be spared the ordeal, too.

“But she’ll have to eat something…” protests Rey, who is starting to get that alarming mutinous look of hers. Ren is not even bothering to hide his amusement.

“I’ll have something sent up,” snaps Hux.

“Some milk would be good, too,” says Premy. She strokes the kitten, which is still within the confines of her leg and the sofa. “I’m happy to stay with her tonight and feed her.”

Hux starts to say something about getting that cat out of his quarters as soon as possible, but realises that it’s a good excuse to stall Rey’s protests. And Premy actually seems to be enjoying playing with the kitten.

“Only for tonight,” he mutters.

***

“She’s a thief. And a spy.”

His flat statement is intended to quash Rey’s enthusiasm for whom she sees as his girlfriend, but it only makes her – and Ren – even more curious.

“What? How? What happened? What was she looking for? Hux, for fuck’s sake, _spit it out already.”_

He has refused to talk about Premy throughout the meal, insisting rather that they tell him about their journey back. And now Rey is practically bouncing on her seat in frustration.

“She was seconded to my staff as a personal favour to her father, the senator. She’s a cryptographer – a brilliant hacker. I caught her in my rooms, going through my computer. She had managed to break the highest security levels in the government system with a program she had coded herself.”

Ren raises his eyebrows, impressed. “So why isn’t she in military prison, awaiting a court martial?”

“I thought she would be more useful outside. Working for me. She has rather… unique skills.”

Ren gives Hux a knowing look. Rey asks: “What was she looking for?”

“Long story.” He avoids Rey’s impatient glare by taking a look at the time on the wall. “Look, it’s late, I have an early day tomorrow, and you must be exhausted. I promise I’ll tell you about this, but not just now.”

Rey opens her mouth to say something, but Ren places his hand on her shoulder. “He’s right. You’re exhausted, apprentice. Why don’t you go ahead to our rooms and wait for me there?”

Rey frowns at him. “You’re not coming?”

“I’ll just have one last drink with Hux.” She is about to protest – but then Ren looks at her intently, saying nothing, just holding her gaze, and suddenly the undertow of dominance between them emerges for a startling second. Rey lowers her gaze.

“Yes, Master.” She turns to Hux. “ _Tomorrow, though_ ”. And leaves.

Ren beckons the waiter. “Corellian brandy?” he asks Hux, and orders a couple of glasses when he nods. Then sits back in his chair, arms folded. “So. What is going on, Hux?” He smirks at Hux’s wary frown. “Don’t worry, I just did a quick scan of the girl’s mind, enough to gather what had happened immediately before. But it’s obvious there’s something you want to discuss with me alone. What is it?”

The waiter returns with the two balloon glasses, but Hux doesn’t even touch his. “What do you know about midi-chlorians?”

Ren frowns in distaste. “Midi-chlorians? It was a ridiculous story that the Jedi cooked up around the time of the late Republic to account for why some people are Force users. A pseudo-scientific explanation – they were obsessed with trying to find distinguishing traits for use of the Force, something they could breed, almost as if they were trying to establish that Force users are a completely different species. A superior one, of course.” He takes a sip of brandy – the Jedi Order, or the Jedi Cult, as he tends to call them – is a particular _bête noire_ of his. “Why?”

“Premy was looking for some very specific files in the system. The Orthyx project.”

Ren falls instantly silent. Then: “Why?”

“Her mother was the lead researcher.”

Silence again. “Did you find the files?”

“She did. In Snoke’s secret archive. You remember it. The secret door in his bedroom.”

Ren drinks again. “I would have thought those files would have been destroyed.”

“You know what Snoke was like. Keeping hooks in everyone.”

“But _that_ project… It was the one thing that even the most fanatical believers in the Empire saw as an abomination. It was supposed to be so horrifying that people wouldn't even dare to mention it. Even Emperor Palpatine had it buried, eventually.” He looks up at Hux. “Did you read the files?”

Hux nods. “They are incomplete. But there’s enough.” He leans forward. “As we suspected, Snoke was involved. Closely involved.”

“And the midi-chlorians?”

“Snoke’s origins have always been a mystery. He seems to have appeared out of nowhere, and he did not belong to any known species that anyone could identify. Suddenly this mutant turns up, and Palpatine gives him a position of extreme power in the Empire, second only to Vader, and nobody knows who he is or where he comes from. All we know is that he is a monstrously powerful Force user.” He pauses for a second. “The files show that Snoke was at some point involved in the Orthyx project. And the project describes experimentation with midi-chlorians. What if Snoke was not an alien belonging to an unknown species, but he was literally a mutant? What if he had experimented on himself?”

“What are you saying, Hux?”

Hux leans forward again, his eyes holding Ren’s gaze. “What if the Orthyx project was meant to create Force users by artificially implanting midi-chlorians in them?”

“ _What?_ ” cries Ren, but Hux is already on a roll.

“Think about it. Snoke was a human being, or some other humanoid species. An ambitious Imperial officer – an incredibly ambitious one, who wanted to use the Force, or was probably already a Force user, but wanted to boost his power. So he injected himself with midi-chlorians, or got them into him in some other way. And they turned him into a hideously powerful Force user – but also into a mutant. And that’s why Palpatine shut down the project. He couldn’t risk creating Force users he couldn’t control.”

Ren shakes his head in disbelief. “This is ridiculous, Hux. There’s no such thing as midi-chlorians. It’s just a stupid Jedi myth. They have never been identified or measured. Those devices that the Jedi allegedly used to detect them were just a scam to impress the gullible.” He scowls. “And to make the little children they took to the Jedi academies believe that they had no fathers.”

“What if it wasn’t a myth, Ren? What if the Jedi really discovered something and then Snoke found their secret and exploited it?”

Ren looks down for a second, then back up at him. “You said that Premy’s mother was the lead researcher.”

Hux turns suddenly sombre. “Yes. In theory, she was killed in an accident. Premy believes she disappeared for reasons related to the project.”

“And?” This time it is Ren who holds Hux’s gaze. Almost gently: “What is it that you don’t want to tell her?”

He hesitates for an instant. “She thinks that her mother found something she shouldn’t have, and that’s why she disappeared. I think she probably blames her father in some way – they were divorced, he got custody, later.” He looks down, then up at Ren again. “She’s right. Her mother was not killed in an accident. She changed her name when the project was shut down. And probably underwent cosmetic surgery, I imagine.”

Ren raises his eyebrows inquiringly.

“Siv Dobol.”

At the name, Ren grows even paler than usual. And, this time, takes a long, long swig from his glass. 

 


	17. Chapter 17

The next morning, he decides to work from his rooms. Watching her, fingers steepled, from across the desk as she concentrates on the assumedly pointless but labour-intensive task that he has given her.

_Does she know?_

She can’t _possibly_ not know. She’s the scion of one of the most conniving, power-hungry families in the galaxy. How couldn’t she? In normal circumstances, he would be certain that all this was just a ruse, an elaborate performance put on for his benefit, and try to find out what her angle is – to _extract_ it from her. But now… Every instinct he has is telling him that she really doesn’t know. At least, not consciously.

There is an obvious solution, as Ren pointed out last night. After all, he – Ren – used to be the best interrogator in the First Order. There is a cost, though. He witnessed it often enough. And even though he is not remotely averse to the idea of inflicting pain on her – particularly if it is inflicted in _very_ specific ways – he cannot stomach the thought of Ren doing it.

If Premy is telling the truth and she really doesn’t know, this is just an orphan’s desperate attempt to flesh out her fantasies, to create a more palatable story for herself than the hard truth. Which, he reflects bitterly, is something he knows something about. And in that case, no doubt he can come up with something that will lead her off the trail for good. Some suitably heroic death. And then he can consign Snoke’s experiments to oblivion again, where they belong.

If she is lying, though…

If she’s lying, he can’t afford to let this go. If there is anything going on involving the Premy family, genetic experimentation, the Force, Snoke, and _Siv Dobol,_ this spells trouble. Serious trouble.

She notices his gaze and looks up inquiringly. He smiles, his small, tight, smile.

_Perhaps Ren isn’t the only one who can break people around here. There’s more than one way to read minds._

***

“So that’s what you’re going to do? Nothing?”

“I’m not going to do nothing. I’m going to wait, and watch her. I do realise that is a strategy you may find hard to understand, Ren. But, unlike you, I’m a patient man.”

 “Giving her rope to hang herself with, eh?” Ren snorts. “Or rather, a leash?”

Hux looks at him in distaste, and pretends not to have understood the innuendo. “In any case, there are potential ramifications which she may not be aware of, and which we wouldn’t find even if you drilled your way into her mind. If she is being used as a pawn by her father – or her _mother_ – I want to follow the trail and see where it leads.”

Ren nods slightly, conceding his point.

“You haven’t told Rey about this, I hope?”

“No.” Ren smiles wryly. “She’s taken a liking to Premy. Last night, before going to our rooms as I told her to, she made a detour to your apartment, with the excuse of ‘taking some milk for Milly.’ They spent some time talking, and she came back fully satisfied that Premy will make you an excellent girlfriend, apparently.”

“For fuck’s sake,” mutters Hux under his breath, annoyed at his own embarrassment.

“And perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, you know.”

“What?”

Ren smiles again, but there is a seriousness underlying it. “Even if she is a thief and a spy and is plotting with her family – it seems to me that you are quite compatible in very specific ways. It’s rather obvious.” He gets up from the table in the officer’s club at which they had been sitting. “Shall we do this on a regular basis, then?”

Hux blinks. And suddenly realises what a relief it is to have someone to talk over drinks with. Moreover, someone who probably knows him better than anyone else alive. He nods. “I’d like that.”

 

***

He returns to his apartment to find Premy sitting on the sofa, stroking the purring kitten on her lap with one hand while she balances a book with the other. And stands in the threshold for a moment, intrigued for a moment by the illusion of this being real: of coming back to a woman who is waiting for him, to a home. To a home with a _pet,_ even.

Then Premy looks up, and the illusion vanishes.

 _A prisoner. **My**_ _prisoner._

And he lets the darker thought take over.

“The cat. Out.”

“What?” She stares in confusion.

He moves forward, picks up the kitten – who, suddenly shaken out of her pleasant sleepiness, immediately hisses and contorts and claws in indignation, sinking its tiny incisors into Hux’s hand. He hastily takes her out to the corridor, where he hands her over to an alarmed guard. “Here. Take it to the kitchens.”

He walks back into the room, the door sliding close behind him, to her furious face. “ _You fucking brute –!”_

He strides towards her and, before she has time to reach, closes his hand around her neck, seizing her. “If I were a brute, you wouldn’t be here, Premy. Now, where were we? Ah yes. You kicked me in the balls and tried to escape. Bad move.” He tightens his grip, choking her. “I think more _therapy_ is needed. Much more.”

He lets go but doesn’t retreat. Just stays there, standing over her. “The stranger at the party. Tell me about him.”

“What?” she glares up at him.

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Tell me.”

“You are a pervert.”

“A pervert? I didn’t write that, Premy. I didn’t _do_ that.” He leans forward, placing his hands on either side of her legs, his face so close to hers. “Tell me, and I will give you some of the files tomorrow.”

She looks at him with such hatred that he feels certain that she would stab him right now, if she could. _Good._

“What do you want to know?”

He stands back up. “Describe the scene.”

“You’ve read it. You already know what happened.”

“Yes. I want you to describe it nonetheless.”

She takes a deep breath, hugs herself, and looks away. “I went to a party. A friend’s friend’s house. She had asked me to come because she fancied someone and didn’t want to go on her own, and disappeared as soon as the girl she fancied started talking with her.”

“So what did you do?”

“I got a drink and stood in a corner, waiting for a bit until I could feel I could leave without it being too weird.”

“Why would it be too weird? You are not a teenager. Nobody would have noticed if you had left straight away.” He fixes his eyes on hers. “Don’t lie, Premy. Why did you stay?”

She says nothing, still looking away.

“Premy.”

His voice so commanding that she looks at him before she can think about it. “It had been a very long time. I thought perhaps I…”

“A long time since _what_ , Premy?”

Her voice almost a whisper now. “Since I had sex”.

“And you were horny.” Not a question.

“Yes.”

“So you were hoping you would find someone to fuck you that night?”

“Yes”. Her cheeks red.

“What happened, Premy?”

“A man and I started to exchange glances across the room. A stranger.” She swallows. “Then he walked towards me. I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t stop – he brushed past me. And told me to meet him in the bathroom.”

“And did you?”

Silence. Then, almost inaudibly: “Yes.”

“A stranger walks past you in a party and tells you to go to the bathroom with him, and you do it? Why?” Not unkind, his voice. Curious, rather.

Her gaze flits sideways, then back to her lap. Then, for a brief second, she looks at him, flushed with shame and with what he’s certain – he can smell it, now – is arousal, too. “He looked – hard.”

“Hard?”

“Cruel.”

“Ah.” He leans forward again, his arms caging her, his mouth now next to her ear, whispering. “Go on. What happened in the bathroom?”

“He walked in after me. Locked the door. Unzipped his trousers.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried to get out.”

“Even though you had just walked in.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I… He slapped me.”

“You wanted him to slap you.” His words slithering into her ear. She whimpers. “That’s why you followed him. You wanted him to hurt you.”

“Yes.” Almost crying now. And so, so aroused. He seizes her by the upper arms, sinking his fingers into her flesh, riding the swell of his own surging hardness.

“And what else, Premy?”

“I sucked his cock.” Her voice now distant, as if it belonged to someone else, her eyes slightly glazed. Disembodied, almost. “He pinched my nipples, meanwhile, hard. So hard.”

“And you came.” His hands move in, sliding off her biceps and onto the rolling surface of her breast.

“Yes.” Over and over and over. The memory rolls in her mind as he pinches, twisting. Somewhere, someone is moaning helplessly.

“Did he cum all over you, Premy?”

“Yessssss,” breath failing as he kneads and twists and digs into her, as the pain mingles with the fear, the shame, the anger into a blinding blade, cleaving deep into her.

“Slapped. Hurt. Kneeling in a toilet, covered in cum.” One of his hand withdraws. “ _Like the filthy bitch you are._ ” And plunges into her cunt like a white-hot iron sinking into water.

And she bucks his hand, hungrily seeking its hard edge, its violating fingers, keening wordlessly, wildly, under his gaze.

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the cat's all right :)

Paradoxically, as she collapses into her orgasm, she feels herself being lifted up – and, after a few seconds of utter confusion, realises that she actually _is_ being lifted up and carried. By Hux. Into his bedroom.

It’s small, much smaller than might be expected of bedroom of the most powerful man in the galaxy, and so bare as to be almost spartan – only the bed and a nightstand, where the books that she went through the first day stand in a neat pile. He says something, and a dim light turns on behind the headboard. Then drops her on the white eiderdown, face down.

Her face is plunged into the soft blankness, which smells of clean linen. She feels his hand on her bottom, caressing, appraising. Even though she is sopping wet, still coming down from the peak of orgasm, her body starts to wind up again, her belly tightening, her cunt throbbing. Her musk is so strong, it must be hitting him in the face.

He lightly runs a finger between her cheeks, over the thin fabric of the clothes, down to the spot where her trousers are damp. Then he grabs the waistband and roughly pulls them down and off, shaking and jerking the trousers and her, until she is left in her panties.

And then his hand again, surprisingly cool against her goosebumped skin. Her breath catches, expecting a spanking. But he just keeps fondling, slightly squeezing, as if testing a fruit. Or in possession.

“Do you want me to continue?” he asks then, and she is amazed to hear his voice thick with desire.

She props herself up on an elbow, looks over her shoulder. He is gazing at her so intently, his control under such strain, that he looks as if he might burst at any second, or burn her just by looking at her. Again, her cunt clenches, almost painfully. She nods.

“Say it.”

“Yes. I want you to continue.” The need wells in her, and she is shocked to find herself saying: “Please.”

She can hear his sharp intake of breath as she begs. “Turn around,” he says tautly, gesturing, and she looks away from him, dipping her nose again into the cool linen.

 _What am I doing?_ The thought flashes through her mind for a second, but he is already pulling her panties off, and then he brings his hand back to her cleft, to her wetness, and she moans at his touch.

Just as suddenly, his hand is gone, and she hears rather than sees him grope along the side of the bed towards the nightstand, open the drawer, and go back just as quickly to the foot of the bed. A few tense seconds, and his breath becoming more laboured.

Then his hands on her hips. And he plunges into her.

She almost cums immediately with the shock of it, she’s so wet and primed. “You’re so _tight_ ,” he groans, as her cunt clenches around him, and she smothers her own groan in the eiderdown.

She’s expecting him to say something, to continue his interrogation, his mindfucking. But he seems to be intent only on fucking her body right now, practically in desperation.

Sensing the closeness of his orgasm, he brings his hand around to her cunt and tries to stroke her clitoris, but she pushes it away – she’s always found touching her clitoris directly almost painful – and instead pushes back against him, lowering her torso even more, so that he slides more smoothly.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he mutters, almost on the edge now. Savagely, he grabs a fistful of her hair and pulls her head back, making her squeal. He’s going to burst now, any moment now… “ _You filthy bitch. Cum.”_

And he explodes as she convulses beneath him, both triggering each other.

They are lying panting afterwards, he collapsed on top of her, when she asks: “And the cat…?”

Spent and dazed, he can only raise his head slightly in perplexity. “ _Wha_...?”  


***

The cat, it turns out, is living the high life in the kitchens when he reluctantly drops by to check on her in the morning, moved by Premy’s worry and, yes, a certain sense of guilt.

“She did lap up the cream we gave her, poor thing,” says a besotted cook, showing him the pantry where she is lounging in comfort on a folded tea towel, next to a mound of bits of chicken and ham and what probably used to be a ball of yarn which she has obviously amused herself unravelling. “Lovely creature, she is.”

Hux grimace-smiles, rubbing the part of his hand where she sank her fangs into him. _Lovely indeed._

***

He doesn’t quite know how to face her, so when he returns to his rooms in the evening, he just hands her the documents he’s selected. “Here.”

She looks up and her face lights up so obviously that it’s almost painful to see. He sits on the sofa, watching her eagerly skim-read through them, and finds it very hard to believe that she’s playing a part. But then again, she may be playing a part unwittingly.

“Midi-chlorians?” she frowns. “Aren’t those the… thingies that were supposed to give you the Force?” As if the Force were some kind of flu.

He smiles wryly. “Sort of. I’m not an expert. But we do have two experts in the Force.” _For my sins._

“Oh. Of course.” She looks at him beseechingly. “Perhaps I could – speak to them about this?”

 _Oh God._ He knows that this conversation has to happen – if only because he wants Ren to help him in trying to gauge what Premy knows and doesn’t know – but he’s dreading it. _It’s going to give them material to rib me for the rest of my life._ He forces himself to smile. “Yes, of course. I’ll arrange it.” He looks down at his hands. “You do realise that the work I’ve been giving you for the last few weeks was rather pointless.”

She sits up straight. “I sort of suspected as much, yes.”

He sighs. “I’m in a quandary. I already have all I needed. But I can’t really let you go until this Orthyx affair is solved. And it’s obvious that you’re going stir-crazy in here, and no wonder.” He tilts his head. “What would you do in my position?”

She absorbs this, stunned. _He is asking my opinion about what to do with me?_

Then, tentatively, she says: “Perhaps you could give me… tasks.”

“Tasks?” She holds his gaze, clearly concealing her embarrassment, and he realises. “Ah. _Tasks._ ” He smiles skewedly. “Yes. I think that is an excellent idea, Premy.”

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - I'm going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, and dropped this. It feels good to get back into the swing of things, though.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read, kudos, and/or comment, as always. I really, really appreciate it.

_This has got to stop._

He’s sitting at his desk in his office, several floors away from her, and he can’t stop obsessing.

_It’s bad enough you lost control yesterday. Now you can’t keep your mind away from it._

And indeed he needs to be thinking about the meeting with the Resistance – the _Opposition_ – leaders this afternoon, as Poe has warned him that Senator Premy seems to be worming his way in. It’s a crucial meeting. And yet here he is, thinking about her bottom and his hands gripping her hips and how she _begged._

_Please._

It echoes in his mind, over and over and over, torturing him. To be completely accurate, thoughts of her bottom and of her voice and of the way she _squirms_ when he talks at her just in the right way have been preying on his mind since he first grabbed her by the wrist in the small interrogation room. He thought he had them under control, though. He didn’t. One would have thought that her kneeing him in the groin would have tempered his lust with some caution – but no, oh no. If anything, it’s got even worse.

Eventually, he gives up and locks himself in the small powder room adjoined to his office. And emerges after a while, flushed and sore and (somewhat) relieved.

 

***

“Hi, Una. I thought I… _What are you doing_????”

Premy turns around on her high perch in Hux’s living room, to see Rey, with Millicent in her arms, staring up at her in open-mouthed amazement. And feels her cheeks – actually, her entire body – flush instantaneously. “Er, oh, hello, Rey. I’m, er, I’m checking the light bulbs.”

Rey blinks. “The light bulbs.” She stares at the small pile of light bulbs on Hux’s desk, at the patrician young woman precariously balanced on top of the high ladder in her underwear.

Premy smiles, a bright if obviously forced smile. “Yes! There have been some problems with the lighting, and Chairman Hux asked me to take a look.”

_There’s no way I’m going to tell you that he asked me to check whether his rooms have been bugged._

“… In your knickers?”

“Ah. Well.” She smooths her hair, frizzy wisps of which have come loose from her bun with all the exertion of climbing up and down the ladder, down. “I got hot.”

_And there’s no way I’m telling you that he told me specifically to do it in my lingerie. And to masturbate every time I took out a bulb._

Rey blinks again, more rapidly this time, lost for words, and Premy takes advantage of the opportunity to quickly change the topic: “Millicent! I see she’s okay?”

“Yes,” beams Rey, placing the kitten – who seems unwilling to be let go – on the sofa. “She’s been fussed over by all the kitchen staff.” She frowns slightly. “They told me that Hux had her taken there. Why did he do that?”

Premy climbs down the ladder and adds the bulb she had been removing to the pile. “He, erm, I think he didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Disturbed by this kitty? How ridiculous he can be! I got him Millicent specifically because he needs some shaking up. Desperately.” She plumps herself down on the sofa, next to the kitten, and starts stroking her. “But seriously, Una, I was a bit worried about you. I don’t want to pry, but – “

 _But you are about to pry right now,_ thinks Premy, amused.

 “Hux is a good person. A very good person. But he has some – serious hangups. And I’m a bit worried about you. He told us that you were arrested because you are a thief and a spy. Is that true?”

Premy leans against the desk, feeling intensely ridiculous in her underwear, but she cannot put something on. He specifically forbade that. “In a way.” She takes a deep breath to steady herslef. “I was trying to find what happened to my mother. I lost her when I was a child.”

Rey’s eye soften. “Oh.” And Premy has the impression that somehow, for some reason, Rey’s view of her has very suddenly solidified into unwavering sympathy and support. Which is rather alarming, to be honest – Rey seems like a force to be reckoned with, even when she’s on your side. Perhaps even _particularly_ when she’s on your side.

“You should ask the Chairman himself,” says Premy cautiously – she isn’t sure what she should and shouldn’t tell this girl – “but what we have found so far could have serious current implications. So he thinks that it’s best if I stay here, in his apartment, so that no one gets wind of it while we investigate.”

The explanation sounds ridiculous even to her own ears, but Rey seems to accept it without any questions. She takes a sudden look at the time and gets up. “Fuck, I’ll be late for training – I need to go. I just wanted to check up on you, and bring you Milly again to keep you company.” She moves towards Premy as if to kiss her goodbye, then reconsiders and goes to the door. And turns. “Oh, by the way, we’ll be expecting you – Hux and you – tomorrow for dinner, at about eight. I think Ben’s already told Hux. I’m really looking forward to it!”

 As soon as the door hisses shut behind Rey’s back, Premy collapses onto the sofa, burning with shame. _She’s caught me. In my underwear. My_ damp _underwear.  And I have to have dinner with her and the Boy Wonder tomorrow. And she’ll tell her that she saw me half-naked, and they’ll both know I know…_

She’s still wallowing in the horror of it all when the cat's small, rough pink tongue helpfully starts washing her face.

 

***

 

He returns to his apartment in a foul mood. Senator Premy has apparently been making quite a good progress, sowing discord and mistrust – even more than usual, that is – among the members of the Opposition. The words “replacement” and “motion of confidence” have even been mentioned for the first time, today. Luckily, Poe still seems to hold some sway in his own party, and seems to have held the flow back. For the time being. He – Hux – needs to do something, obviously. And soon.

He is not oblivious to the irony, as he taps his door code, that having fucked the daughter last night, the father has been trying to fuck him today. And even more roughly.

He steps into his room – to find her kneeling on the floor, in a bra and briefs, sweaty and flushed and smelling of sex.

Playing with the cat.

“ _What is that thing doing here?”_

“Rey dropped by and brought her. She was pretty miffed that you sent the cat to the kitchens.” She smiles slightly. “She seems to think it’s good for you.”

His irritation at the unwanted animal presence vaporises at the sudden image. “Rey came by? You spoke to her?”

“Yes.”

“Like this? You didn’t cover up?” He moves closer towards her.

“Yes. And no. I didn’t cover up.” He’s so close now that his shins are touching her knees. She looks up. “You told me not to, whatever happened.”

“So I did.” He leans down, grasps her by the elbows, and helps her to her feet. “Did you touch yourself too? Every time you took out a bulb, as I said?”

“Yes.”

Seizes her chin gently. “Yes what?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good girl.”

She feels her arousal mount fiercely at his closeness, at his touch, and swallows. “And I found no bugs. Sir.”

He smiles, amused – he knows perfectly well that his rooms are not bugged, his security team had gone through them with a toothpick. But it was a lovely excuse to keep her busy in a slightly humiliating way. And the thought of Rey coming here and catching her half-naked and stinking of her own musk is having some very strong effects on him right now. He luxuriates in the image for a second, then files it away for future reference – and use – when he is on his own.

“Good job, lieutenant. That deserves a reward. What would you like?”

“More files. Sir.”

 _Of course she would ask for those._ He nods, slightly disappointed. “I was going to show them to you anyway, Premy. Anything more – personal?”

He looks at her intently, and she is overcome by his closeness, the smell of his skin, those icy blue eyes fixed on her. But sudden, overwhelming lust. Her mouth goes so dry that she can hardly speak.

“I… I would…” She stammers in confusion, in shame, in horrible, burning desire. “I…”

“What is it, Premy? What do you need?” Almost tender, his edge. “I won’t do anything until you ask for it.” Fully aware that this, making her say what she wants, what she needs, is the cruellest thing he can do. And the kindest.

And then she surprises him.

“I want to suck your cock.”

 

 ***

 

“ _In her bra and knickers?_ ”

Ren is lying in bed, waiting for Ren to join him. She smiles, pleased at his stunned reaction, and nods. “Oh yes. And you could smell her cum all the way from the door. She’d obviously been frigging herself silly every five minutes. Those two have something seriously kinky going on, I tell you.”

For a second, Ren looks slightly annoyed that Hux has managed to outdo him in the devising of kinky scenarios, but then he leans back against the pillows. “It’s pretty obvious. Didn’t you feel the sexual tension between them when we saw them? You could cut it with a knife. I suspect we had interrupted them in medias res. Or rather in mid coitus. Coitus interruptus.”

“Yep, you don’t need to be a mind reader to see that,” she laughs, then slides into bed next to him, and sighs in contentment as he wraps his arms around her.

He speaks the word that turns the light off. Then, a few minutes later, he whispers in her ear, in the dark: “Is it horrible of me to think that perhaps next time you see Premy in her underwear you could take your clothes off too and join her while I watch…?”

She jerks her hand back suddenly, hard, hitting his nose, eliciting a pained "Ow."

And she bursts into a fit of giggles against him.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Life, summer, all that. Plotty plot ahead!

“Changing the light bulbs. The light bulbs. _Seriously_?”

Ren cocks his eyebrow at him until Hux shifts uncomfortably in his seat, embarrassed. “I couldn’t think of anything else, all right?” He takes a sip of brandy and mutters: “And besides, some _did_ need replacing.”

Ren suppresses a smile, clearly thinking _Amateur._ “Hux, from what you have told me, Premy has a… thing about pain. As do you. I don’t think climbing onto desks in her underwear will quite cut it.”

“Oh, so now you are the expert in this sort of thing, are you?” grumbles Hux in irritation, sinking his nose even deeper into the glass. “Kylo Ren, Galactic Kinkmaster.”

Ren eyes him in suspicion. “Hux… you _have_ done this sort of thing before, haven’t you?”

“ _Of course I have done this before_! For fuck’s sake. Just ask Phasma.”

Ah yes, Phasma and that strange sort-of-relationship which they had while they were in the Imperial Academy. “I thought you disliked her... way of doing things.”

“I do. She’s clearly a sociopath. But I learnt from her. Mainly how _not_ to do things, and the things I baulked at, but I did learn. But what I mean is that I have experience with this. And rather more than you. If I recall rightly, it was me who kept nagging you to go planetside and release some steam now and then – if only to leave the rest of us in peace for a while.”

Ren pretends he hasn’t heard the last sentence. “So what’s going on? It isn’t like you to lose control. Or to be uncertain.”

Hux takes a deep breath, and a deep swig. “I have no idea.” He looks at the time. “Shouldn’t we get going?”

 

***

 

They are met by a smiling Rey as the door to her and Ren’s apartment opens. “So,” she asks. “Where’s Una?”

“She said she would come ahead of time and help you lay the table and so on,” frowns Hux. “She’s not here?”

“No,” says Rey. She sees Hux’s concerned look. “She was probably delayed by something.”

“Perhaps,” mutters Hux. “I’ll go and find her.” And turns around and strides down the corridor towards the lift, with a _very_ bad feeling.

 

***

He stares into the empty room. Immediately noticing that her computer’s gone.

“Shit.”

 

***

“What do you mean, she hasn’t left the building?”

The nervous officer hands the screen to Hux so he can see for himself. “There are no records of her leaving through any of the exits, sir. See for yourself.”

Hux frowns. It’s impossible for anyone to leave the building without going through any of the – heavily guarded – exits. He made sure – after his past experiences, and the highly volatile political situation – that security in the building is as watertight as is humanly possible. Unless she has managed to find a hole. But how…?

He stares suddenly at a name on the list. “Jakku?”

“That’s what I told them to use as my surname in my ID,” says Rey beside him in the small control booth.

Hux looks up from the screen. “According to this, you left the building at 11.34 this morning. And never came back.”

“But I didn’t leave the building today,” says Rey, puzzled.

“That would be about the time the morning shift changes, sir,” says the officer.

“She’s used Rey’s ID code to get out,” states Ren, who’s standing at the back, arms crossed.

“You need an ID code _and_ successful voice recognition to be allowed to exit,” points out the officer. “If you can’t provide either, the system immediately sets off the alarms.”

Hux turns to Rey. “You said that, when you brought the cat, you went up to my rooms to see how she was doing. What _exactly_ did you do while you were there?”

“We just sat down and – well, cuddled the cat,” says Rey, flustered. “And talked.”

“Where were you carrying your ID card?”

“In my pouch, as always.” She gestures at the small cross-bag that she always carries when she’s out and about. “I’ve never been able to get used to suits with pockets.”

“Did you leave her alone with it at any point?”

She frowns, thinking. “I usually take it off when I sit down, so I must have left it on your sofa, yes.” She looks at him. “And I did go to the bathroom.” She reddens slightly. “I was bursting.”

“Did you say your name during the conversation? Your full name?” asks Ren from the back.

She becomes even more flushed. “She did ask me whether I was going to change my name to Ren any time soon – I thought she was just gossiping. I just laughed.” Her eyes widen slightly as she remembers. “But I did say ‘No, no, I’m just Rey of Jakku.’ Several times.”

Ren looks at Hux, eyebrow raised. “There you have it.”

Hux thinks for a second, and then goes deathly pale. “Rey,” he asks slowly as his stomach turns with dread. “Your code – I didn't give you access to my office, did I?”

 

***

 

Premy leans back in her seat as the space shuttle takes off and, for the first time, allows herself to relax.

Actually, it was easier than expected. Taking a quick look at Rey’s ID card when she went to the toilet and memorising it, then hacking the system, copying the Rey’s number onto her own ID and finding the code to tap when exiting was child’s play. And it was not hard at all to get Rey to say her full name, while denying that she wanted to take Ren’s (and she did have a point – “Rey Ren” sounds slightly ridiculous. But then, she calls him Ben. Ben Ren? Really?)

What she was most worried about was some guard recognising her, or recognising that she wasn’t Rey. But she had noticed that the morning guards are extremely hungry, and desperate to leave, when their shift ends. And the guards who replace them usually take a good five minutes to find their bearings when they take over. It was just a matter of waiting for the right moment, when they were busy swapping places, and hardly paying any attention to who went in and out of the building. She also took care took care to wear a hood slightly covering her head, as Rey sometimes does when she goes out, so that, at a glance, any guard would just see a youngish woman on the slim side, as expected.

She’s also used Rey’s ID to get on the shuttle. It won’t take long for them to track her, she expects (although you never know – it’s scandalous how incompetent the government’s IT security team are, as she has just proved). But by then she will already have taken another flight, under a different name, and there will be no way to find her.

She hugs the bag in which she has hidden the sheaf of classified documents to her chest, as if unwilling to let go of it even for one second. _I’m coming. I’m coming, Mum._

But she can’t help but be perturbed, as she leans her forehead against the headrest and closes her eyes in a vain attempt to doze off, when all she can think of is the feel of his cock in her mouth, his hand on her neck.

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More plot to move the story along! (Don't worry, the, ahem, _other_ dynamics will be back soon).

Senator Ingol Premy is waiting for him with the grimmest expression Hux has ever seen on him, and that is saying something.

He’s agreed to meet Hux in his senatorial office – at first he tried to play one of his little power games, having his secretary say that he was too busy, that Hux would need an appointment and so on. But as soon as his daughter was mentioned, the senator took over the line and just said: “My office. _Now_.”

“Where is Una?” is all he says, not bothering to greet Hux or shake his hand or offer him a seat. Hux sits down in one of the chairs across from him on the other side of the senator’s humongous desk, nonetheless.

“Off planet. That’s all I know. She made it to the shuttleport. We lost track of her there.” He looks piercingly into the older man’s eyes. “Although I think we both know perfectly well where she is headed.”

Senator Premy lours even more, if that is possible. “I made her take that job because I thought she would be safer in a position in government. If she was closer to power, not in that ridiculous _teaching_ job of hers.” He glowers at Hux. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

“She wasn’t just a teacher, she was a research fellow,” points out Hux, eyebrow raised, but the senator just shakes his head dismissively, as if it’s all the same to him. “And you thought that your daughter would be more protected in a position in which she could have easier access to exactly the information that would endanger her?” He stares at the senator in disbelief, feeling his anger start to creep up. “Do you even have any idea of who your daughter _is_?”

“ _THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, HUX_ ,” roars the senator back. “I knew you were an incompetent clown, but I thought you would be able to control a fucking _girl._ ”

Hux looks down at his hands, watching his knuckles whiten as he tightens his grip on the armrests, trying to hold back his surging anger. And ignores the senator’s taunt. “She’s going to meet her mother. She’s obviously been in contact with her all along. And she’s taking her the Orthyx project files, Ingol.” He pauses as the senator blanches in shock. “Oh yes, she knows. I’m not sure what she’s been told about it, but she knows. She knows about Orthyx, and she knows her mother didn’t die in that accident, and she knows you lied to her. And now she’s on her way to meet up with Siv Dobol, probably the greatest criminal mastermind in the galaxy in the last two hundred years. Or with someone who claims to be her.”

He leans forward on the desk, realising as he does so that he is baring his teeth, as if ready to leap on the senator and tear his throat out. “So now you’re going to tell me everything about it, Ingol. All the shit you have been trying to hide from your daughter her entire life.” He leans even closer. “ _I’m going to find her_ , _Ingol_. So start talking.”

 

***

 

Rey’s inquiries in the university department where Premy used to work are not going well. Even though everyone she talks to acknowledges that Premy’s research work was excellent and she was a good tutor, nobody seems to have been particularly close to her.

“She sort of kept herself to herself,” says the professor who tutored her Ph.D. thesis, a tall man with a mop of unruly salt-and-pepper hair. “She came across as arrogant to most people, but I think it was mainly shyness. Then again, most of the other research fellows thought she got her fellowship thanks to her father’s contacts.” He draws himself up in slight indignation. “Which was completely unfair. Una got to where she was on her own merit – I reviewed her application, and know for a fact that she never accepted any of her father’s money. She said it came with strings attached, and I believe it.”

“So she didn’t have any friends? Colleagues she got on well with?” asks Rey.

“No. She was brilliant, which made some people envy her. And everyone knew she came from money, and thought she was swimming in it, which didn’t help either. She was quite lonely, as far as I can tell.” He thinks for a second. “There was a guy – a visiting fellow, from Naboo, I think. He was doing research in her field, and they became friends. I think he wanted more than that, but it was clear she wasn’t interested. In any case, I think they kept in touch when he left, because they were planning on co-authoring a paper.” He grits his teeth. “And then of course her father interfered.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Not right off the top of my head, but I can look it up for you.” He turns to his computer, taps a few keys. “Jem Boxul, that’s it.” He peers at the screen for a second. “It’s ironic.”

“What is?”

“Well, Una left to join the Imperial Army, or whatever it’s called these days. Jem is still a university researcher, but apparently he’s working with the government too. He’s in some sort of working group on encryption standards – something to do with ID security or something like that. I think that was what they wanted to write their paper about.” He peers again at the computer. “Actually, he seems to be on Coruscant again for six months with his working group. I should get in touch with him.”

Rey’s eyes are glinting with contained excitement. “Could you give me his contact data, please, professor?”

 

***

 

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Jem Boxul is a shortish, pale, blue-haired man in his thirties. Who is glaring at them, cross-armed, looking as stubborn as a mule and repeating the sentence in different variations over and over.

They are in Hux’s office, to which Boxul has been summoned from his workplace in another government building. And Hux is losing his patient rapidly – although Rey cannot but wonder at his restraint: if Ren was here, he would have already grabbed Boxul by the throat in frustration.

“Look, Boxul,” says Hux, steely, steepling his fingers, “we know you were the person closest to Lieutenant Premy. You are an expert in cryptography, like her. You are in a position in which you can easily forge a passport. And you just happened to be in Coruscant when she disappeared using a false ID. Just how stupid do you think we are?”

But the blue-haired man stands his ground. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I haven’t spoken to Una in months. I don’t know where she is. I can’t help you.”

Rey tries another tack. “Jem – I’m a friend of Una’s. We are worried about her. We understand that you want to help her.” She softens her gaze. “We know how difficult things were for her, with her father.”

Jem’s expression wavers for a moment, and he looks down. He mutters: “No, you don’t. You have no idea.” He looks up. “Una was drowning. She spent her whole life trying to get away from her father, from his control. He tried to sabotage her academic career because he just wanted her to get married to someone he approved of.”

“We know. We are not helping her father,” says Hux. Jem sneers at him in disbelief, but Rey cuts in.

“We are worried about her. Una thinks – Una thinks she’s going to meet with her mother. Or with someone who claims that she’s her mother. And it could be very dangerous for her.” Jem looks at her, still mistrusting, but starting to listen. She says: “Siv Dobol. Heard of her?”

He obviously has. “Wasn’t she a big drugs and arms dealer during the wars?”

“And a warlord. Warlady. Whatever the term is. Yes. We think Una is going to her, because she thinks she’s her mother.” Rey looks at Jem imploringly. “Jem, I know you think we are trying to trick you into betraying her, and that we want to bring her back to her father against her will. Senator Premy _hates_ Hux here – “

“Just ask around,” says Hux cheerfully. “The man is planning a coup against me. He can’t stomach me.”

“ – and Una could be in serious, serious danger. I don’t know what she’s been told, but we think she’s been tricked. And we are _her friends_.”

Jem looks back and forth at the two of them, the pale red-headed man, clearly worried sick under his cool demeanour, the earnest brunette. Seeing him waver, Hux says softly: “Jem. Una Premy is of no interest, political or otherwise, to anyone but her father. And I swear to you that I’m not working with him or for him – if anything, he’s my political enemy, but Una has nothing to do with that. We only want to find her because we think she’s in danger from Siv Dobol – whoever that may be.”

Still cross-armed and frowning, Jem looks at Rey sidewise. “You care about Una?”

Rey almost jumps in her seat. “Yes! I swear! She’s my friend!”

Jem is silent for a moment. “I don’t think anyone realises how lonely Una has been all her life. I understood.” He raises a hand and opens it – displaying the webbing between his fingers. “I’m a mongrel. Una was one of the few people who treated me like a normal person, not as if I was a freak of nature. So yes, when she asked me for help, I tried to help her.”

“What did she ask you to do?” asks Hux.

“She told me that she needed to disappear. That she would never be able to life a full life as long as she was Ingol Premy’s daughter. And she was right. She would always have her father over her shoulder, breathing down her neck. She said she wanted to start a new life as someone else. So I got her the documents for that.” He sighs. “I – offered to go with her. But she said she needed to do it alone. So she sent me a message, and we arranged to meet at the shuttleport station. I gave her her new passport and all the other stuff there. And we said goodbye.” He looks sad now, regretful. Then he looks up. “Her new name is Hana Len. I don’t know where she’s travelling. She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Thank you for that,” says Hux, getting up. “We are grateful. You have done the right thing for Una.”

Jem places his hand on Hux’s arm as he moves and looks at him in the eye. “You _care_ for her, don’t you?” And holds his gaze.

Hux nods gravely. “Yes. I do.” 

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok. Things getting hotter now. Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting!

As they walk out of Hux’s office, they see Ren striding purposefully towards them. “I’ve been getting a ship ready,” he says.

“A ship?” says Hux. “What if we hadn’t got the information we needed?”

“I would have made sure we did,” replies Ren flatly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

 

***

Before he leaves, Hux goes to talk with Poe.

“You want me to do _what_?”

“Head the government. On a _temporary_ basis, of course – I expect I’ll be back in a couple of weeks or so. I need you to stall things for a while.” He smiles, his foxy smile. “And this is your chance to get a taste of it. After all, you are the head of the opposition. You should be dying to have this opportunity.”

Poe puffs. “You know I have no personal desire for power, Hux.” _Yes,_ thinks Hux, _and that’s exactly why I’m leaving you in charge._ “And,” goes on the former Rebel captain, “my parents are visiting.”

“Your parents?”

“Yep. They’re meeting Rose and Finn for the first time. It will be fun, but I’m a bit nervous. We all are.”

Hux blinks at Poe in perplexity for a second, unable to understand what he is going on about*. “Poe. My team believe that there is an immediate threat against the Republic which I must deal with personally, and I will be travelling with Lord Ren and Rey to support me.” _If only because Ren made it very clear that there was no way in hell that he was going to miss this._ “I need you to hold the fort meanwhile.”

Poe sighs again, then nods. “OK. I’ll keep them busy with the wording for the new Constitution – that drives everyone crazy and I have no idea why, it’s such a ridiculous thing.”

Hux smirks to himself. Leave it to Poe, the man of action, to miss the legal implications of just the right tiny word in just the right place. “Just don’t make any serious decisions before I’m back.”

 “No. Just one thing,” Poe calls Hux back as he is leaving. “This is about the girl, isn’t it?”

Hux makes his expression as impassive as possible. “Where did you get that idea from?”

Poe, who is no fool and moreover is an excellent poker player who by now knows all of Hux’s tells, grins. “No, it’s not the word on the street, don’t worry, Chairman.” His smile grows even more pronounced. “It’s just that it’s so obvious if you know what to look for.”

And then goes, leaving Hux even more paranoid than usual.

 

***

 

The inn, like the entire planet, is mostly empty, dusty, and rather dreary. They tell her that it’s livelier in the evening, when it does double duty as the local bar and nightclub, but, even though her nightlife experience is limited, she finds it hard to believe that any serious action can go on here. Then again, it’s hard to believe that any serious action could have ever gone on on this planet, and yet it was Skywalker’s homeworld once. Which doesn’t make her feel particularly good.

In any case, she has a whole day and a half to wait before her next transport – a weekly ferry serving Tatooine and other nearby Outer Rim worlds – arrives. So she might as well get comfortable and make the best of it.

She is given a room on the upper floor of the inn, which she suspects is used for less-than-wholesome activities at night: a small room with a midsize bed, a nightstand, and a ratty, greasy drape covering a small, square window. She spreads out her travel cloak on the bed to lie on, and avoids touching anything else in the room as much as possible. Then goes out into the town to find some food and drink for the evening, as she plans on locking herself in her room and not coming out until the morning.

As she goes out, she covers her head with her hood, trying to look as androgynous as possible, and makes sure that her weapon- a standard army blaster, filched from a weaponry storeroom on her way out of the government building, courtesy of Rey’s ID – is safely within hand’s reach. She’s never actually shot anyone, and she hopes she won’t have to. But better safe than sorry.

When she returns, the inn’s lights are starting to be turned on, and there’s a dull thumping coming from a stage at the back of the main floor, where one of the local band musicians is starting to rehearse. The barman looks up at her as he dries glasses with a disgusting-looking cloth, but says nothing.

She enters her room, tossing the bag of fruit and water flasks she has bought on the bed, and turns to close the door –

To find _him_ standing there.

Wordlessly, he locks the door shut behind him. Stares at her in silence for long, long seconds, and she clenches, in a mix of fear, despair, and something else. The knife’s edge.

“How did you find me?” she asks, eventually, her voice smaller than she had intended.

“Jem Boxul,” he replies, impassive.

“You didn’t hurt him?”

Her concern for another man burns him for a second, but he manages to suppress it. “No. He became concerned for you when we explained to him who you were going to meet.” She stiffens visibly. “You were already in touch with her when you joined the army, weren’t you?”

She says nothing.

“You didn’t do it because your father forced you to. You accepted because you knew it would be easier for you to find the information she wanted you to get. The Orthyx files. Where are they?”

Still she says nothing.

“Give me the files, Lieutenant Premy.”

She doesn’t move.

“I’ve gone through the room. You are obviously keeping them close to you. Give them to me, or I will get them myself.”

At that, Premy grabs the blaster in her holster, but he is quicker, and throws her back onto the bed, knocking the weapon against the wall and out of her hand. He holds her down against the spread-out cloak with his forearm, while he rummages under her clothes with his free hand – and extracts the folder that she was keeping between her back and the waist of her trousers.

He throws the folder to the floor, back and away from them. And then slaps her across the face, hard. “You fucking lying bitch.”

She struggles beneath him, but he is stronger and heavier. And he is, she realises, furious. In fact, she has never seen him so angry before. Which inflames her even more.

She tries to scratch and claw at him, like an animal, but he gets hold of her hands and pins her down. She kicks – he blocks her with the weight of his own body.

She spits him in the face.

His face, as he looks down on her, is a predator’s. An angry, wild predator going for the jugular.

And then he yanks her trousers and underwear down, and enters her roughly, angrily, wanting to hurt her. And only realises minutes later, as he is grinding against her, that she is rising to meet him, her hips following his furious pace, and she is moaning in something beyond pleasure and pain, and she is so wet that her moisture is seeping through the fabric of his trousers.

“Fucking masochist,” he mutters against her ear. “Fucking painslut.” And grabs her breast, digging his fingers into it, twisting it viciously, until she cries out.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” she pants out between gritted teeth. “ _I hate you._ ”

“ _I know,_ ” he replies, and bites down on her shoulder, hard, drawing blood, and she cums against him, keening, desperately, convulsively, as he spurts and spurts into her. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *That's because Poe is probably the only person in the entire Star Wars universe to have anything remotely similar to nice normal parents.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay - holidays and auntie duty :)
> 
> Back on the saddle! Hope to update more regularly now. Thanks to everyone for following, as always!

Ren opens the door without knocking. “Hux –“ he starts.

Then realises that he is looking at Hux’s naked bottom, and immediately after, at Hux’s face, flushed first in postcoital bliss and then, as he notices Ren’s presence, in embarrassment and anger.

He shuts the door again, wordlessly. No, there’s no way to unsee this.

_Fuck._

“What’s going on?” shouts Rey from the ground floor. “Is she there?”

“Yep,” he mutters as he comes down. “She’s here alright.” He approaches her. “We should go.”

“You’re uneasy,” points out Rey.

“Yes.” Ren looks around at the people in the increasingly smoke-filled, thrumming tavern, a motley crowd of human and non-human, with the only shared characteristic that all of them look remarkably shady, and most of them downright violent. “My fa – Han Solo stopped over here sometimes, in his smuggler’s runs, although he would avoid this place if he could. He always said that Mos Eisley was a dangerous place, even for him. I’d rather we got out of here quickly.”

Rey looks out through a grime-encrusted window. “I’ll get the ship going, then. Want to hurry Hux and Premy along?”

“I think I just did.”

 

***

 

This time, he knocks before entering. And this time, to his huge relief, Hux is back in his black fatigues, the only telltale sign of what has just gone on a darker stain against the dark fabric. Premy is sitting on the bed, handcuffed. They both scowl as they see him.

“Erm, I think we should get going. Not a very recommendable place to stay overnight. Rey is starting the ship.”

“We’ll be there in a minute,” says Hux in his stiffest, most clipped tones. “Thank you, Lord Ren.” And nods to dismiss him.

Ren raises an eyebrow, but opts to say nothing and nods in return, then leaves.

Hux turns to look at her, but she’s staring at her cuffed hands. “Get up,” he instructs her coldly. “We’re going.”

She doesn’t move. Just says: “Let me go. Just let me go. I’m tired of being my father’s pawn.” She looks up. “You, of all people, should understand that.”

He realises he’s flushing slightly, his usual anger whenever his fraught relationship with his father is mentioned concealing the underlying shame. He forces himself to calm down – he’s already regretting having lost control just a few minutes ago. “You’re jumping from the fire into the frying pan. You have no idea who Siv Dobol is.”

She glares. “ _She’s my mother!_ ”

“She’s also one of the most dangerous and ruthless people in the galaxy. An arms dealer, a drug dealer, a mercenary. Even Snoke dared not touch her.”

“ _She had to survive,”_ snarls Premy, her fury mounting. “She lost her life. She lost _her child._ She did what she had to do after my father tried to have her killed. And I’m sure that half of her reputation is just lies spread by the men she scared and pissed off – like my father.”

“She’s been feeding you lies.”

“ _My father_ ’s been feeding me lies my entire life!” she shouts. “And now you’re doing his bidding like the good little establishment toady you are. Do you think you have any real power, _Chairman Hux_? Do you really believe that you are anything other than a puppet tolerated by those _really_ in power, and that you won’t be cast off the minute you stop being useful, or the minute you refuse to have your strings pulled? Can you really be so _naïve_?”

“That’s enough.” He moves forward to grab her by the forearm, and she squirms away from him. Pointlessly, as he’s stronger, and she’s handcuffed and pressed up against a wall, but he sees the desperation, the desolation in her eyes, the need to show her defiance. That much freedom, at least. He softens his grip, and his voice. “I’m not doing this because of your father. I’m not returning you to him. I’m doing this because your mother is dangerous, and she’s lying to you. Because I want to protect you.”

Her eyes widen in shocked surprise, but, as she opens her mouth to say something in reply, there is a crash outside the door. He takes his blaster out of the holster, and goes to the door. Opens it carefully.

“Hux!”

He sees the blaster flash before he hears Ren’s shout, warning him, and his trained reflexes make him crouch in protection immediately – the blaster hits the wall behind him, singing it and leaving a cloud of acrid black smoke. He looks through the bannister too see a tall, thin man in a dark hood standing on the ground floor, blaster in hand: he turns when he hears Ren’s warning – Ren is standing near the door – but doesn’t budge. Two other figures come of the crowd, blasters in hand, and move towards Ren.

He looks back at the small room, at Premy. They need to move fast. “Quick,” he shouts, “we have to…” But already two other men are climbing the stairs towards him. He shoots at them, but they crouch and dodge. He glances quickly at the small window in the room – perhaps Premy can squeeze her way out…?

“Hux!” Ren is shouting at him again, more urgently this time – he can’t see him in the crowd below, and the two guys are approaching, and he’s about to tell Premy to lock herself in the room –

“Hux! BEHIND YOU!”

He turns to see the thin hooded man whom he had not seen approach from the other side of the corridor, looming over him. And the last thing he thinks before he’s knocked out is that nobody, in the milling mass below, is going to give a shit about him dying.

 

***

 

The throbbing in his head prods him malevolently back to consciousness. So he’s not dead, after all.

“Ow.”

“Very eloquent,” says the soft, familiar voice to his left.

He is lying on his back, on a very hard floor, in a darkened space. Premy is sitting next to him, hugging her knees, her back against what looks like a curved metal wall, with visible rivets. The hull of a ship?

He sits up, and the pain in his head seems to slide sidewards into an even more exquisitely sensitive area. He winces. “Ren and Rey?”

“No idea. I don’t think they got them, though.” She sinks her head slightly into the loop of her arms. “At least I hope they didn’t.”

“Any idea who they are? Did they say anything?”

She shakes her head. “They just bundled us into the ship. Said something about you saving them trouble.” She raises her hands, to show that she is still in his handcuffs. She drops her hands again, then looks up. “I’m sorry. For having got you involved in – whatever this is about.”

“Nobody forced me, Premy.” He steadies himself against the opposite wall, feeling queasy with the pain and a sudden nausea.

“That’s true,” she says. Then says, sombrely: “You should have minded your own business, though. It would have been better for everyone.”

He leans his head against the metal wall, his throat shockingly pale in this gloom, and closes his eyes for a second. “Premy, you idiot,” he says finally. He draws his head up again, swallowing the nausea back. “When are you going to understand that _you are my business_?”

  

 


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family histories and reunions and moving the plot along.

“So,” she says, eventually. “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“The terrible things you think you know about my mother. What made you come all the way here to rescue me.” He looks at her in surprise, and her jaw hardens slightly. “I like to have as much information as possible, Hux. And reach my own conclusions.” She realises that he is unsure, afraid to hurt her. “For fuck’s sake, Hux, stop worrying about sparing my feelings. I’m an adult. I can cope.”

_And you’ve had your feelings trampled on your entire life._

“Very well.” He takes a deep breath. “Siv Dobol was an early supporter of Snoke in his coup. I’m not exactly sure how, but she paved the way for him to get control of the First Order when it was very much not clear who would emerge victorious from the whole mess. After that, she was untouchable, and created a galaxy-wide criminal empire which Snoke never dared to mess with.”

“Oh please, spare me the ‘nefarious mastermind’ characterisation,” she mutters.

“You don’t understand. No doubt Snoke never touched Dobol because she had so much on him – but also, in a deeper way, because the First Order actually _relied_ on Dobol’s criminal web to run smoothly. The dark underside of the First Order, if you will.” He opens his hands, palms up. “I’m not judging, just describing. Snoke feared Dobol, and her organisation. It was a matter of a balance of power.”

“Did you ever see her? In person?”

“No. And I never came across anyone who claimed to have actually seen her, other than Snoke. She seems to have had multiple bases, mainly on moving ships, across the Outer Rim, even though her influence extended to the entire galaxy. I only heard reports, second- and third-hand accounts, about her.”

“So what happened after Snoke’s death?”

“Silence. Complete silence. It was as if Dobol’s entire network had folded back on itself and disappeared somewhere in deep space – all the contacts, the activities, everything we were aware of, went overnight. She disappeared completely.” He looks up at her. “Obviously, until now.” He tilts his head. “How did she get in touch with you?”

“A message in my pigeonhole, in university. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. At first, of course, I think it was a hoax – a very cruel hoax – or something to do with my father or siblings, some family ploy. But the message gave me instructions to keep contact securely – and I know a couple of things about security and secrecy, and the instructions were extraordinarily sound. So I went along with it, cautiously, mainly out of curiosity.” She looks down.

 _And in hope, too,_ he thinks, but doesn’t say it.

“The messages – they were full of things, intimate things, that only my mother, or someone very close to my mother, could have known. Secrets. And then one day I spoke to her by holo, with no image. And it was her voice. My mother’s voice. And no, it wasn’t a recording, or a fabrication. I screened it to death. It was her. Alive.”

“What did she say?” he asks, pretending not to notice that her eyes are starting to brim with tears as she speaks.

“She told me about Orthyx. The conspiracy. How my – my father had tried to have her killed, because she found something she shouldn’t have. She said she could clear her name, and come back, if I could only bring her the project files.”

“Did she tell you what she had been doing all that time? That she was Siv Dobol?”

“Yes.” She slightly thrusts her lower jaw out in defiance. “I didn’t judge her. She survived. And she wasn’t hypocritical about it. Unlike my father.” She hesitates, a little. “Although I didn’t really know about the – extent of her reputation.”

He sighs, and leans back, and looks at the woman across from him, her worried, frightened frown, the doubt and guilt visible as they creep in. He wishes he could say something reassuring, but he can’t. He might try, with anyone else, to keep up morale – but Premy is someone who needs to face truth, however hard it may be. And now she’s facing the very real truth that she may have unwittingly led him to his death.

“My father was ashamed of me,” he says, casually, and she looks up in surprise. “Not of what I did – of my very existence. I was a bastard. The outcome of a dalliance with a cook in a remote posting. A _cook._ I think what drove him crazy about me what that I was a constant reminder that he could have been attracted by such a lowly person as a cook _._ By such _scum._ ” He goes on, impassive. “He took me away from my mother when I was seven. And made sure to remind me every day of my life of how undeserving and disgusting I was.” He pauses. “My mother died when I was eleven – I was told about it months later. By then, I had almost forgotten what she looked like.” He looks up. “If I had heard my mother’s voice again, calling me, I would have moved heaven and earth, I would have set fire to the entire First Order and Snoke and the entire bloody galaxy and watched them go up in flames, just to be with her again for one hour.”

She doesn’t know what to say, and then realises she is choking up – for him, for her, for both of them. For the sheer cruelty of it all.

He says nothing, but just leans forward and places his hand on hers.

 

***

 

They are sleeping, after travelling for days – they measure time by the food and water rations that are dropped in from a trapdoor above –, when they are woken up by the sudden loud bump and unmistakable screeching and creaking of their ship being towed into port.

The trapdoor is thrown open, and they both blink painfully at the sudden light after days of gloom – but before they can say or do anything, a ladder is dropped and orders are barked for them to climb out.

As they clamber out, they are separated–Premy is whisked away and off the ship, despite her protests. Hux finds himself facing again the tall, thin man who shot at him in Mos Eisley, grinning at him. “You aren’t going to be any trouble, are you?”

Hux grinds his teeth and shakes his head no. _Not yet._

***

 

She is taken down a long, metal-lined corridor, clearly in a space port or a larger ship. She had expected grime and dirt, dereliction even – but everything is spic and span, as gleaming as an Imperial destroyer. The only difference is that the people around her – her escorts, the few people she sees scurrying in haste along the corridors – aren’t wearing uniforms.

A door slides open, then shuts behind her, and she realises, turning, she is no longer escorted. She is on her own, in what looks like some sort of empty command room.

Except for the tall, slim older woman standing in front of a control panel. Who turns around when Premy comes in, and stares at her, unsmiling.

The shock stuns Premy for a second, as she takes in the dark bronze hair, the hooded, deceptively sleepy-looking blue eyes, the commanding expression. And then the woman – the woman who had been dead, and now is not – smiles, and Premy’s legs turn into jelly.

“ _Mum_?”

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get to know Mummy a bit better.

He is unceremoniously thrown into a cell with a narrow bed. But not before he has the time to recognise the kind of ship they are on, and feels a wave of dismay – a Phantom, a stealth ship. The technology for building these is prohibitingly expensive – the First Order never had more than five or six at any time, reserved for incredibly specialised missions. Siv Dobol must have unheard of resources if she can afford one of these.

And, of course, it also means that it will be almost impossible for Ren or any government forces to trace them.

He is deliberately kept waiting in his cell – it’s very obvious, to someone who has been on the other side. And then, more or less when he expected, the door opens. And Siv Dobol walks in.

She has changed little since the last time he saw her – a bit thinner, perhaps, her crow’s feet perhaps slightly more marked. But she still has that calculating glint in her eyes which she cannot conceal, and that commanding presence. Looking at her, now, he can see the resemblance – the curve of limbs, the precise tilt of the head, how the father’s harsher features are softened by the mother’s smoothness. And yet, the differences – Premy takes refuge in her aloofness, her detachment. But there is an essential coldness about Dobol’s demeanour that her daughter completely lacks.

“General Hux,” smiles Dobol thinly. “Excuse me, it’s _Chairman_ now, isn’t it? Quite a career move for you. But then it’s been a long time.”

“A long time indeed,” says Hux, coolly. “I see you haven’t been wasting your time either. A Phantom?”

Dobol smirks. “Can’t complain. I have always emphasised the importance of investing in development, and we have very good line in research and development – or had, until your predecessor’s unfortunate demise _._ ” Her smirk deepens. “In which, I am told, you played a quite _interesting_ role.”

The official version is that Snoke was killed in a spaceship accident – very, very few people know the truth, and Hux’s involvement in it. “You still have good sources, I see.”

She nods slightly. “The best. Which is how I know exactly why you are here, Chairman. Which, you must acknowledge, would be a very puzzling situation to understand otherwise: Chairman Hux, the leader of the galaxy, the head of the government, placing himself in extreme personal danger in the Outer Rim over an obscure accident that happened twenty years ago.” She smiles broadly now. “How did you explain _that_ to your government, I wonder?”

“My government is very understanding,” he mutters. “What do you want, Dobol?”

She leans against the wall, cross-armed, still smiling. “Oh, I already have what I wanted, Chairman. And I know what _you_ want – which is why you are here.” She laughs. “I knew my daughter had potential, but frankly, I would have never have suspected her of being capable of _this –“_ she gestures with her chin towards him. “Luring the coldest fish in the First Order! Unbelievable!”

He feels himself redden in anger. “Lieutenant Premy did not _lure_ me into anything, Dobol. She’s not that kind of person. Hard though it may be for you to understand.”

“Oh, I know, it was completely unwitting! Which makes it even funnier.” She laughs again. “Still, she’s clearly good bait. And when she has learnt all that I can teach her, she will be devastating, I assure you.”

“Your daughter has been thought of as _bait_ enough already _,”_ he snarls, and she raises her eyebrows.

“My, you _have_ fallen hard for her! Delightful.” She claps her hands, once. “Anyway, I can’t waste any more time with pleasantries. You’ll be recording a holomessage in a couple of hours, asking your government to pay your ransom. I strongly advise that you be persuasive and not try anything funny, for your own sake. And then we’ll see exactly how much your government appreciate you, I guess.” She moves to go. “It’s been a pleasure to see you again, Chairman. Even if it was for such a short time.”

“Where is Premy? What are you going to do with her?” he blurts out.

She stops and turns, more slowly. Smiling, that cold, amused smile. “That is none of your concern, Chairman. But, given that you are so interested, _my_ daughter is better than ever, and ecstatic at having reunited with her long-lost mother again. I _will_ take good care of her.” She leans forward meaningfully. “Much better, I gather, than the care you’ve been giving her.”

He flushes. “I know you, Dobol. You’re incapable of caring for anyone other than yourself. You’ll use and manipulate your own daughter for your own purposes, making her believe that you’re doing it out of love.” He’s trembling with fury, now. “You can’t understand it, but I genuinely care for your daughter, and not out of some stupid infatuation. And she cares for me, too.”

She stares at him for a minute, tight-lipped, no longer smiling. Then says: “That’s all that’s keeping you alive, Chairman. If it were up to me, I would cut you into pieces while you were still alive and send every little bit of you back to Coruscant, one by one, after what you did. If you survive this at all, it’s only because my daughter cares for you. Count yourself lucky.”

Then she walks out, the cell door clanging shut behind her. Leaving him alone with his thoughts.

 

***

She sits leaning into her mother on the sofa, hugging her, almost afraid that she will disappear again if she lets go even for a second. She still can’t believe it – the warmth of her mother, the smell of her, her skin, her hair, as familiar after twenty years as if she had last seen her yesterday. The memory, which had been there all along, buried, no longer a memory, and overwhelming.

She’s so happy she thinks she’s going to burst any minute now.

“Sweetheart, I can’t breathe,” says her mother, laughingly, and she loosens her grip, not having realised how tight it had been.

“I’m sorry, Mum. It’s just – I knew it was you, when you got in touch with me, but I still can’t believe it. I missed you so much.”

“I know, darling. I missed you too.”

She props herself up again. “So – the files I brought you – is it what you needed? Will they clear your name? So you can come back home?”

Her mother smiles wryly. “Oh, yes. It’s all there – how your father set me up, all the documents that prove it. We’ll go back to Coruscant and tell everyone and everything will be all right.” She looks down at her daughter, smiling. “I just need a bit of time to settle all my business here – and I’ll need you to lend me a hand. Can you do that?”

“Of course I’ll help you!” She pauses for a second. “About your… business.”

“Yes?”

She doesn’t know how to say it – or really, what she wants to say. _Mum, is it true you are the top drugs and arms dealer in the galaxy?_ She takes a deep breath. “I understand that you had to do whatever it took to survive, after what… happened. And there was a war on, and then a dictatorship. I don’t presume to… judge.” She looks at her mother, looking for a reaction, but there is none. “What I mean to say – what I think I want to ask – is… Is it over? Will you leave that behind when you come home?”

Her mother says nothing, just looks at her in silence, impassive, for a long, long instant. Then her face breaks into a smile. “Of course, sweetheart. When I say I need time to settle my business, what I mean is that I’m shutting the whole thing down. I’ve been moving towards that for a long time, and all I need to do now is tie up a few loose ends. And then we can return to Coruscant, and start over. Who knows,” she laughs, “I may even go into politics.”

She laughs with her, in relief, in happiness, and then she remembers, like a dart shot across the bow. “Hux.” She looks up at her mother, suddenly anxious. “He _will_ be safe, won’t he?”

Her mother smiles again, but her smile hardly conceals her irritation. “I told you already, darling. He’ll be back on Coruscant soon enough – we just need to make sure that we are not traceable. Until we clear things up, I’m still an outlaw, and now the kidnapper of the Chairman of the Republic – and so are you. But he won’t be harmed, I promise you.”

“I still would like to see him before he leaves, Mum.”

Her mother sighs. “Again. I told you. It’s really best if you don’t. He’s being debriefed right now, and it’s best if we don’t interfere with that.”

She swallows, hard, and nods, and reaches out to touch her mother’s hand. Her mother squeezes her hand, then leans forward to tuck a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear.

“It’ll just be easier for everyone,” she says softly. “And in any case, I really don’t think _he_ wants to see you any more, love.”

 

 


	26. Chapter 26

She is led to her room, later, which she is grateful for as she is exhausted. And she can’t stop worrying about how Hux will be, even though her mother has reassured her that he is in a perfectly comfortable cell and is being treated well.

Before she leaves, the officer who has brought her here says: “I’ll come to pick you up in the morning.”

She smiles politely. “Great! I should warn you that I am very grumpy before my first coffee of the morning, though.”

The officer seems a bit thrown off by this. “Yes, er – well, you shouldn’t eat or drink anything immediately. They’ll be running a few medical tests, and they need to be on an empty stomach.”

“Oh, I won’t be needing any tests,” says Premy – who, ironically, tends to dislike needles – airily. “I had the full gamut when I joined the army, a couple of months ago. I’m fine and dandy, I assure you.”

The officer looks down, flustered. “Er, yes, well, my orders are to take you to the medical lab first thing tomorrow, and these tests are important, and you’ll have to be sedated, so…”

Premy frowns. “Sedated? What kind of tests are these?”

The officer looks even more flustered. “Well, those are my orders. See you tomorrow then.” Then nods and turns, clearly relieved not to face any more questions.

Premy sits on the bed, wondering. Then takes out the personal commlink which her mother has given her in case she needed something, and clicks it.

“Yes, Una?” comes her mother’s voice, slightly concerned. “Is everything all right?”

“Um, yes, it’s just – the woman who brought me here told me that they will be running some tests on me tomorrow. What’s that about?”

Her mother hesitates for just a second, but enough for Premy – who is used to listening for nuance in other people’s language to find the truth – to notice. “Just routine tests, love. Standard procedure. Anyone who joins the fleet must take them – to make sure that no contagious diseases are spread and so on.”

“Yes, well,” says Premy. “But I passed every medical test conceivable just two months ago, when I joined the army. I can give the medical team my papers. I don’t think there’s any need for any tests.”

“Better safe than sorry, darling,” laughs her mother. “It’s not important, but let’s just have them done tomorrow, and then we can spend the day together and catch up on all the big stuff.”

Premy is silent, the cold knot in the pit of her stomach becoming more and more noticeable. _No, please. Not you._ She swallows. “Mum, I don’t want to take those tests. I’m not getting sedated,” she says firmly. _Let’s see what happens now._

Her mother goes very quiet, and for a second Premy fears that the force of her fury will pour upon her through the commlink, like her father’s did. But she is calm when she answers: “We implant tracking devices in all our crew members, Una. It’s standard procedure. To find you if you get lost. Everyone here wears one – I wear one myself, I’ll show you.”

She thinks, fast. Probes further. “Can we just wait until we get to the base? I’m still a bit overwhelmed by – all that has happened.”

“I’m afraid not, love.” Steel under the softness. “It really needs to be done tomorrow.” And Premy gets the very clear sense that what she really means is _And if you push me I’ll get it done straight away._

She pauses for a second. Then hardens herself. “I want to see Hux before he leaves so I can say goodbye properly. I won’t take those tests until I see him.”

A long silence on the other side of the commlink, and she can almost feel how her mother is weighing the options. Then a sigh. “Very well. I’ll give instructions. And you’ll go straight to the medical bay after you talk to him. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mum!” she cries, with fake enthusiasm, imitating what she supposes a child being allowed a treat must sound like. “Thank you, Mum!” She can practically hear her mother’s pleased smile on the other side of the line. “See you tomorrow, Mum.” And turns of the commlink, feeling a familiar mix of dread and self-disgust.

 

***

 

Hux has hardly slept. He had been supposed to record his kidnappee’s message yesterday, but apparently technical problems delayed it to this morning. He should be dreading it – and partly, he is: it means the end of his political career. How on earth can anyone make a comeback after this? The Chairman of the Republic going solo on a rescue mission to find his girlfriend, getting kidnapped by space pirates, and having to beg the Government to pay for his own ransom?

There’s no coming back from that. And yet, that’s not what’s most on his mind. What he can’t stop thinking about, the image that has been haunting him all night long, is Premy. Premy being taken into the bosom of that poisonous snake that is her mother.

_I can’t allow it. I won’t allow it._

And yet here he is, in a tiny cell, about to be recorded begging for his life. He has never felt more powerless in his life.

He hears rumbling, on the other side of the door. The food trolley, distributing breakfast to prisoners, he imagines, crew members scurrying to and fro as they change shifts. He remembers from his own days in the military that this one of the busiest time of day. He hears tired laughter, snatches of conversations, shuffling steps.

“…She says she won’t swap shifts with me now because her leg hurts… can you believe it, after I covered for her? I’ve half a mind to…”

“…Oh fuck, I need coffee _badly_ …”

“…No, of course not. We’ve spent two days charting the course. Those _fucking_ _rings_ …”

“…We need more blankets. The prisoner shat himself… Do you have any idea what Wookie shit _smells_ like???…”

“… Hey, you free later? They’ve put us on an extra shift down there…”

And then some steps come closer, clearly closer, and the door opens. He straightens his jacket and turns to face his jailor – and finds himself staring at Premy’s anguished, ashen face.

“Hux…”

He leaps up from the bed, seizes her, and kisses her in the mouth, hard. She yields in his arms, almost as if fainting, but then he can feel her respond, hungrily, as desperately as him.

There is a cough from the threshold. A bloody officer. “You have five minutes.”

“ _Five minutes?_ ” practically _roars_ Premy.

“Those are my orders,” says the officer, not really apologetically.

“Can you give us some privacy then, at least?” says Hux.

The officer smirks. “Nope. I have been told to be present throughout.”

He hears Premy mutter a curse under his breath, but there’s no time to spare cursing. He places his hands on Premy’s hips and sits on the bed, dragging her down with him, so that she sits straddling his lap.

Immediately, she plunges her face into the hollow of his neck, as if nuzzling him – and actually nuzzling him. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?” she whispers urgently in his ear.

“I’m fine,” he replies, and brings his hands up to her head, releasing her tight bun, so that her hair falls down to her shoulders. Concealing. “I’m being held for ransom. They won’t hurt me.”

She swallows, half in relief that he’ll be safe, half in anguish because he won’t be there any more. “They are forcing me to take medical tests. Serious ones – they’re sedating me. And they're implanting a tracking device. There’s something very wrong here.”

“I know. Don’t worry. I’m not leaving you.”

“ _What_?” She draws back her head to look at him, making the officer start. But Hux just grabs the back of her head and pushes her back into another kiss.

She is sinking in his warmth, his kiss, his arms, the smell of him around her. She never wants to let go. She has to let go if he is to survive. She just wants to cry.

She feels his fingers caressing her back, the way he touches her as if counting her ribs, tracing the outlines of her spine, her hips. His hardness under her. “I’ll come back for you. Your mother won’t hurt you. Just hold on, play along. I’ll come for you. _I promise_.”

She draws back again and stares at him, those cold, intelligent blue eyes, glinting at her. _How?_

He brings his head down to her chest, kissing his way up her throat, her mouth, and round again to her ear. “I know where the ship is going.”

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

Ingol Premy, his back slammed against the wall, his feet hovering above the floor, is clutching at the non-existent hand at his throat, gargling in panic and asphyxia.

“That’s enough, Ben,” says Rey. “He’s starting to turn blue.”

Ren drops his leather-gloved hand, and Premy Senior’s body slides down the wall to the floor in a boneless heap, coughing and gasping.

“You… you…” he manages to splutter in fury as he catches his breath. “ _Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with_?”

“I’m dealing with someone who, I am completely certain, has far more information about the doings of Siv Dobol than he’s willing to let on,” says Ren calmly. “And I happen to be someone who’s very good at extracting information, sooner or later.” He peers down at the indignant man clambering to his feet. “And I strongly advise that you make it sooner rather than later. For your own sake.”

Premy looks at Rey, who is sitting at the edge of his desk. She nods gravely. “Oh yes. He’s serious.”

“Fucking psychopath,” mutters Premy, and is immediately slammed up against the wall again.

Rey winces. “Don’t do that, Senator Ingol. It’s just a waste of everyone’s time.”

“It’s fucking rich that you call me a psychopath when you are the one using your children as political pawns”, growls Ren, tightening his invisible grip again, so hard this time that only a strangled yelp comes out of the older man’s throat.

“Ben. Enough,” says Rey, and Ren drops him again. Rey sighs. “Do you really want us to do this, Senator?”

This time, Premy stays standing against the wall, his legs shaking slightly. He glares at them both, fuming silently. Then Ren glares back at him and spits out: “We’re trying to help your daughter, you moron.”

“That matter has been taken care of,” replies Premy, tight-lipped.

“You don’t understand,” says Rey, getting off the desk, and coming very close to him. “If you don’t give us absolutely all the information you have on your not-so-deceased wife and the Orthyx project,” she says very gently, “I’m going to personally flay you alive.” She leans forward and rests her hand lightly on his leg. “But not before I kneecap you. _Right now_.”

Premy looks at the young woman who is gazing so calmly at him, her intent gaze, her steady voice. He is a man of the world, a man who fights dirty, who isn’t afraid to get blood on his hands if need be. A man who has seen – and dealt – violence and death when required. And who knows how to recognise danger.

And looking at this slip of a girl, he is in no doubt whatsoever that she is dangerous – more dangerous, possibly, than the dark, hulking man who is watching her speak in mute awe. And that she is not bluffing. This is a woman who will readily tear out his throat with her teeth if he thwarts her.

“And do you know why?” she hisses, bringing her mouth close to his ear. He shakes his head wordlessly. “Because it’s _our friends_ out there.”

She takes a step back and looks at him. Not really expectantly – she already knows what his response will be.

So when he opens his mouth and starts to speak, she only smiles, slightly.

 

***

 

“There’s a message,” Poe tells them as they arrive in his office, soon after he urgently sent for them. “A ransom note.”

Poe’s office looks rather more like a bachelor’s pad – the pad of a bachelor who had never heard of the concepts “tidying up” or “cleaning droid” – than the place where an elected official, and the leader of the opposition, works and actually receives people. There is a desk there, somewhere beneath the huge pile of papers and clothes and empty takeout containers and what looks like actual spare parts for a fighter ship. There is also an unfolded foldable cot in a corner, a giant inflatable purple armchair that has been repeatedly patched up, and a battered leather sofa, all covered in _stuff_.

Poe, who is sitting on something and can hardly be seen behind the pile of things on his desk, gestures for them to come in. “Take a look”.

Ren looks around, appalled, his expression conveying, with no need for telepathy whatsoever, what he thinks about the habits and discipline of Resistance officers. He looks even more horrified when Poe makes a gesture, actually expecting them to _sit down._

“When was the last time you…?” he starts to ask, but Rey just grabs him by the sleeve and pulls him down next to her on the sofa. Something squeaks as he sits – he doesn’t know whether to be relieved when it turns out to be a suspicious-looking rubber toy, which he immediately flings away and pretends not to have seen. He is very glad to be wearing his gloves today.

Poe clicks on a remote, and a holobeam comes out of a projector somewhere in the wall, forming an image about a foot above the clothes-strewn floor. Hux, looking disconcerted, squinting in the glare of the recording lights. His voice is tense, even in the crackling holobeam:

“We are alive and well, but please follow the instructions that they are going to give you following this message. It bugs me to ask this, as the Chairman of the Republic, but I am very near despair now, and I just want to come home.”

The message ends. “The instructions are to get 300 million in untraceable credit chips ready and wait for further instructions,” says Poe.

Ren ponders for a moment. “That was odd.”

“What was?” asks Rey.

“The blinking. Didn’t you notice it?”

“He was probably being recorded with bright lights in his face. And he has blue eyes.”

Ren shakes his head slightly. “No. Have you never noticed? Hux hardly blinks – it’s a reflex he deliberately taught himself to suppress, as a child. He told me once that he wanted to feel that at least he could outstare his father. The more stressed he is, the less he blinks. And yet in this recording he was blinking all the time.” He looks up at Poe. “Play it again.”

The holobeam comes on again, and Ren watches intently, as if memorising it. When it is over, Rey looks at him. “What?”

“I know where they are going.”

“What? How?”

“Play it again. And this time, take note of the words he is saying when he blinks.”

Poe starts the message again. As it plays, Rey silently mouths the words. When it finishes, she frowns: “We are. Going to. Bugs. Near. Home?” She turns towards Ren. “What?”

“Home – Hux’s home world is Arkanis. It’s in the same sector as Tattooine, where he and Premy were captured.”

“But the bugs!?” cries out Rey in frustration.

“Bug central,” says Poe, finally understanding.

“There’s a planet with an insectoid local population in the Arkanis Sector,” says Ren. “They’re headed for Geonosis.”

 


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay in posting! It's been a rough month, but I think things are getting back on track now. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone reading and commenting. It really, really means the world to me.

She wakes up to the nausea and the pain. As she tries to prop herself on her elbow, a wave of nausea overcomes her, and her mouth is suddenly filled with hot, bitter bile. Someone places a metallic kidney basin beneath her chin, and she vomits into it, her diaphragm convulsing like a mad thing. It keeps going until she’s dry heaving painfully and the retching eventually subsides; and she coughs and pushes the basin away, strings of saliva dribbling. She drops her cheek onto the pillow, exhausted and disoriented and afraid, and involuntarily curls into foetal position, weak and helpless.

“Oh, love,” says the newly familiar voice next to her. “It’s over now.” Her mother is standing at the foot of the bed in the infirmary, looking at her in concern.

Now the queasiness is over, she realises that something is throbbing with pain, somewhere in her body. She sees her forearm before her, the patch of red, slightly swollen skin around the dressing. “What did you do?” she croaks. It’s impossible that she's feeling  _this_ bad just because they inserted tiny implant.

Her mother sits next to her on the side of the bed. “I told you. We needed to run some tests. Thorough tests.” She smiles. “The medical team tells me everything is absolutely perfect.” She looks at the dressing on her arm. “And now you’ll never be lost to me again.”

She squeezes her daughter’s good shoulder slightly, and Premy forces herself to smile. “Poor thing, you look as pale as a ghost,” smiles her mother. She gets up. “Take a rest. I need to do some things now, but tonight we’ll have dinner together and we can talk about the future.” She looks at her with an odd, stricken expression, as if a pang of _something_ – Premy can’t be sure what – has suddenly gone through her.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

Her mother makes herself smile again. “Yes. It’s just I remembered one time you were little, when you were also sick in bed.” She reaches down for her daughter’s hand. “I’m so glad you finally found me, Una. No one will separate us now. Ever.”

Premy squeezes weakly back, and then her mother is gone, and she is alone in the white room. And she realises that the throbbing pain is not coming only from her forearm.

She turns around, hoping not to get nauseous again, and something hurts, behind. “Ow.”

She takes her hand to her back and palpates, gingerly. Another dressing, right in the middle of the small of her back. Her skin here doesn’t seem to be inflamed as on her arm, but the pain, as she explores, feels different – deeper, somehow, as if something far more serious had been done. Bone-deep.

She curls up again, her whole body sore with the intrusions, her mouth bitter and dry, and cries silently. She has never felt so afraid, so lonely. She closes her eyes, and the memory of his smell, his warmth, floods her mind as she falls into an exhausted sleep.

 

***

 

He feels the slightly shuddering in his small cell, and immediately knows, from his many years in command, that the ship is swerving, positioning itself to start the careful manoeuvring through the asteroid belt _._ They are approaching Geonosis, faster than he had expected. At this rate, he calculates, the ship will be on-planet by tomorrow. _Which means, if they are really going to hold me for ransom…_

The door to his cell scrapes open. As he thought, they are not taking him with them to the planet – they have no intention of leading the Government’s ships to their base.

One of the guards is standing in the threshold, as backup. The other is holding out a set of bulky manacles. He sizes them up quickly – two large, armed men, but he could probably best them if he caught them even slightly by surprise, particularly in this small space. The problem is the people he can hear in the corridor outside. So he allows himself to be handcuffed and walked out of his cell.

He is not led to the upper decks, as he had expected – Sobol apparently is not the type to go for pithy farewell messages, more’s the pity – but further down into the hull, the machinery- heavy areas of the ship.

“Where are we going?” he asks one of the guards, who snickers at his question.

“Let’s just say that we’re giving you some time to cool off.”

A cold slipknot of dread slides close around the mouth of his stomach as he realises what that means. He waits, as they go further into the bowels of the ship, for the corridors to clear. Then they reach a flight of stairs, and one of the guards moves ahead of him to unlock a door. As he passes him, Hux stumbles to his knees on a step.

The man behind him moves forwards to pull him up – and Hux springs from his crouch, bringing up the heavy handcuffs like a hammer against the guard’s face. The man falls back, unconscious, his face covered in blood, as the other guard, still opening the door, turns around in surprise.

Just a moment’s advantage, a second off-guard is all Hux needs, and he’s got it now. He swings the manacles again, bringing the who weight of them against the guard’s flank, then kicking him below the knees so that he loses his balance and falls too. Quickly, Hux moves on top of him and hits him across the face until he too is out of it.

He looks over his shoulder, making sure that the first guard is still knocked out, and rummages through the pockets in the second guard – who was the one who manacled him – until he finds the control for the handcuffs and releases himself. Then he pauses.

_Think._

He takes off his bloodied, tattered jacket and puts one of the guards’ on. His hair is going to be a problem, though, and neither of them is wearing a cap. _Oh well. At least they’ve got blasters._

He drags the unconscious men through the open door, then looks around. This is clearly where they were taking him. He sees, through the porthole in a door ahead of him, a low, pulsating reddish light. Taking care to leave the door propped open with one of the men’s feet, he quietly moves towards the porthole, and looks.

As he had expected. He sees the large, dark pit, ready to receive a body, the steam, the lava- like substance below, the tubes. Two masked operators are manning a control panel, monitoring the process.

Carbon freezing.

He shudders, feeling in his bones the chill that was being prepared for him right there. Then quickly trusses and gags the guards with their own clothes and gets out, locking the door behind him.

With any luck, he calculates, he has ten minutes.

 

***

 

They’ve given her a cabin with a window, a luxury in a smaller ship like this, and someone has placed a set of clean clothes on her bed. The shower is waterless, just a fresher, and a faint acetone whiff still clings to her when she goes out, but at least she’s clean now.

She looks through the window as she dresses, at the asteroids orbiting majestically – and dangerously – around the rust-coloured planet ahead. The ship is hovering still now, getting ready for the new course.

Geonosis. She knows the planet was the scene of violent wars during the Clone Wars. And then, of course, there were the rumours of an atrocity in Imperial times – but then, genocide was so frequent under the Empire that it was hard to tell one massacre from another. The inhabitants, she seems to remember, were insectoid desert-dwellers of some kind. And they are no longer there. They are no longer anywhere.

She sits on the bed, feeling a wave of despair wash over her again, and balls her hands into angry fists. _No._ She won’t allow herself to give in to despair, to hopelessness. She doesn’t know how bad things are going to get – she glances at the dressing on her arm, feeling the sheer _violation_ of it again – but that doesn’t mean that she has to just take them. _Even if it’s my mother doing it to me._

She gets up and walks to the cabin door. There’s no one outside – her mother must believe that she’s under control.

_Think, Premy._

Hux. They’re holding him in the cells in the hull. He told her he knew where they were going – why?

She thinks, fast, trying to place herself in Hux’s shoes, to think the way he would, which is a rather sobering experience. He’s trying to escape, of that she has no doubt. She only hopes he will have the sense to get out as fast as he can – she is coming to suspect, more and more strongly, that her mother is someone who is capable of practically anything, and that she has very little patience with those who stand in her way. She hopes he won’t…

“ _Premy_.”

She turns, in disbelief, in amazement, in dread. He has.

He smiles at her, his wry, slanted smile. “Fuck, Premy, if I’d known you would look at me like that, I don’t know if I’d bothered coming back for you.” But before he ends the sentence, she has hurled herself against him, kissing him breathlessly, holding him tight, as if she were drowning.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she pants, eventually, as she emerges from the kiss.

“So I’m told. Repeatedly. By you, mainly.” He looks around, hearing the sounds of steps headed towards them. “Well? Are you coming or not, Premy?”

 

 


	29. Chapter 29

If she had had any doubts as to Hux’s effectiveness as a fighter, they dissipate instantly as she watches him dispatch, quietly and efficiently, five or six crew members, approaching them from behind, lethally stealthy. A quick twist, a squeeze at the neck, and they collapse in a heap at his feet.

The first time he does it, she stares at him, white-faced and wide-eyed in shock.

“Unconscious,” he clarifies. And moves on along the corridors to his next prey, like a stalking cat.

After a few minutes of Hux knocking people’s lights out, they reach the hangar, where the shuttle that brought them here is still docked. Fortunately, there aren’t many people around, and they manage to slip into the ship unseen.

“The gate is closed,” pants Premy as Hux settles at the ship controls.

“I noticed.”

“So how are we getting through it???”

Hux turns around to face her, raises a tawny eyebrow, picks up the ship’s commlink, and turns it on. So on, in fact, that the buzzing and crackling of the microphone resound across the entire hangar.

“This is Chairman Hux speaking,” booms his voice, as all the crew members milling around turn to stare at the ship.

“ _WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU…????”_ cries Premy, panicked, but he waves his hand, shushing her, and she falls silent – not because of his shushing, but, again, out of shock. _He’s suicidal. Or insane. Or suicidally insane. There’s no other explanation._

She watches as the crew members outside run in frantic circles, in a manner not much unlike that of headless chickens.

“I have taken Siv Dobol’s daughter hostage. Open the gate if you would like her to keep breathing in the next five minutes.”

Premy glares at him in sheer disbelief. He merely smiles back at her.

The panicky scurrying around outside continues – the crew obviously don’t know what’s worse, doing what he says, not doing it, or – and their collective swallowing in anticipatory fear here is palpable – telling Dobol.

There is a different crackling in the hangar, and what sounds like the voice of a very nervous, very young man booms back at them. “Erm… release your prisoner!”

Hux conceals a smile as he replies. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Open the gate, or she gets it.”

A tamping, muffled sound, as if the speaker was covering his microphone and feverishly arguing on what to say next with the people around him. Then: “Er… we are entering the asteroid belt – the gate is programmed not to open until we land on the planet. We can’t open it right now. Release your prisoner, and we guarantee that you won’t be harmed.”

Hux audibly scoffs. “Kid, I was piloting ships when you were in your nappies. Lock gates _always_ have emergency codes to open them. Stop wasting my time.” He gestures for Premy to come close to him. Then slaps her sharply across the face, so that she cries out in surprise. Her cry echoes around the hangar.

“I’m not joking.” Then yanks a lock of her hair, and she cries out again. This time, she hams it up: “ _No, please, no!!!_ ” And she sees what looks like a glint of amusement in his eyes.

More scuffling, more muffled sounds, more crackling. “One…”

But the young man’s voice is abruptly cut off, and a much more resounding, familiar one replaces it.

“Just what do you think you are doing, _Chairman_?” Siv Dobol’s deep contralto, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. And yet - Hux notes with certain satisfaction - irritated too. 

From her standpoint, Premy cannot see most of the hangar outside, and – more importantly – she cannot be seen either. She imagines her mother at the control console, coolly composed and calculating, frowning slightly at this unexpected annoyance.

“Why, I’m getting out of here, Dobol,” he answers brightly. “Unless you’d like to recover your daughter in pieces, that is.”

She can practically see her mother’s scornful incredulity. “I’m too old for this nonsense, Hux,” she says. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

“Bullshitting, am I?” replies Hux. “Are you willing to stake your daughter’s life on that?”

There is a sudden silence for a moment. Then her mother’s voice again, still commanding, but slightly – only slightly – less self-assured now. “She’s _in love_ with you,” she retorts, saying it as if Premy had some kind of disease. “She’s helping you escape.”

Premy feels the need to say something, but Hux gestures for her to be quiet with a glance. “That may be so,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean that _I_ have gone completely idiotic too.” Premy blinks, disconcerted, at this, but he doesn’t even look at her. He goes on: “You know me, Dobol. Did you really think that I – the Chairman of the Republic – came all the way to Tattooine to personally pick up your daughter because I was in love with her like some hormone-riddled teenager? _Seriously_?”

Silence.                                                             

“I’ve been in the pay of your ex, in Ingol’s pay, all along. Who do you think subsidised my rise to power? Why do you think Una was sent to work for me to begin with?” He leans forward over the microphone, not daring to look at Premy as he sees this. “The idea – Ingol’s and mine – was to get her pregnant as soon as possible. Consolidating my position and the Premy family’s position in a mutually beneficial arrangement. That’s why I came all the way here when that stupid bitch bolted, to make sure that the job was done properly – let’s just say I was protecting my investment.”

Dobol’s voice now. Ice-cold. “You are lying.”

 “Perhaps. But you know what I’m capable of, Dobol. You’ve seen it.” His voice drops now. “Again – are you willing to stake your daughter’s life on that?”

He glimpses, out of the corner of his eye, Premy’s face. Bloodless. White-lipped.

“Open the gate, Dobol. Or I swear I’ll literally fuck your daughter to death. I’ll rip my way through that tight little cunt until my cock comes out of her mouth. And I’ll broadcast it to you, your crew, and anyone listening out there.”

Silence again.

Then the low, scraping sound echoing across the hangar as the gravity shields come into place and the locks slide back, and the huge, heavy gate starts to grind open.

 

***

Either Hux is not a particularly good pilot, or flying through an asteroid belt is really tough. Or, most likely, both. They do somehow survive the zigzagging, sickening hurtling, and eventually crash-land, white-knuckled and pale with fright, at the foot of a rust-red Geonosis dune.

They stare at each other wildly for a long, long instant, as if silently asking each other if they can truly be still alive. Then the adrenalin, or whatever it was that made her keep it together during the terrifying fall, recedes, and she feels a wave of euphoria – verging on hysteria – threaten to crash over her.

As if sensing it in himself, Hux forces himself to snap back into composure. “Come on, let’s get moving. I have no doubt that your – that Dobol’s thugs will already be after us.” He gets up from the pilot’s seat and rummages around the small vessel, picking what he thinks will come in useful – food rations, survival and first aid kits, tools. He is stuffing them into a rucksack when he suddenly looks at Premy and stops.

“The tracker.” His eyes fixed on her left forearm – the scar is partly visible under her pushed-up sleeve. He looks up at her face, silently. Reaches his hand out, palm upwards.

She understands. Not quite managing to conceal her gulp, she steps towards him, placing her forearm on his palm, which grips her slightly. Gently, he pushes up her sleeve completely, so that the scar is completely exposed. Then brings up the knife.

It’s a small multi-use switchblade, part of one of the kits he’s salvaging. Extremely sharp. It glints coldly in the ship lights as he holds it.

He peers into her face again, inquiringly. She feels her mouth go dry. And nods.

His left hand grips her forearm more tightly, immobilising and supporting her in a way that is both distressing and strangely comforting. He raises the thin blade, lays it flat against her skin.

“Lean against me.”

She had been expecting the cut, the pain, any second now, and is caught off-guard. She releases the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, and places her other hand on his shoulder, stumbling slightly. Feeling the firmness of him. His strength.

“Look at me, Premy.”

She cannot but obey, lifting her eyes from her flesh, so that they are caught instantly by his gaze, those ice-cold eyes, as if hypnotised.

Below, out of her sight, the blade bites into her flesh. She digs her fingers into his shoulder as she feels the blood drain from her face with the sudden flowering of pain. But still his eyes won’t release her.

It’s burning now, the pain, radiating from her arm up to her shoulder, her neck, her head, and across her entire body, and still she can’t look away, she can’t even cry out, caught in the eyes of the man who is inflicting this on her, the man who is cutting her way into her flesh with exquisite, painful precision. The man who had done, who is doing, this to her.

“Here.”

His voice, then, distant and strangely quiet. He is holding something tiny on the tip of the bloodied blade.

They stare at each other again as they come out of the trance, and realise. Their silence so sexually charged that it’s like an electric field. She’s so aroused it hurts. And it’s glaringly obvious that so is he.

He’s still gripping her forearm, though now a rivulet of her blood is trickling down onto his fingers. “Let’s get you a bandage,” he says, trying to sound brisk and business-like. But his words come out brittle and artificial, his voice thick with desire. Inconvenient, irrational, fierce desire.

 

 


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yep, these two are pretty twisted. They are getting used to it, though. 
> 
> Thanks as always to everyone for reading and kudosing and commenting!!!

“We need to go,” he mutters, trying to get a grip, and she nods, relieved that the spell has been – sort of – broken.

They jump out of the ship onto the rust-red sand, tawny clouds of dust rising under their feet as they tread. The sky above is pale, almost milky: the four moons now visible – four of the fifteen Geonosian moons – look ghostly, almost translucent, through the hazy atmosphere.

Hux frowns in concentration, scrutinising a handheld device. Finally, he purses his lips, looks up, and points towards what looks like a faraway tor in the distance. “That way. It’ll be nightfall soon. We can find shelter there.”

They start walking across the sand, which is increasingly reminding Premy of stories she had heard about catacombs, the way ancient blood turns into powder, into dead reddish dust… She blinks, trying to clear her head of morbid thoughts. “Have you been here before?”

“On Geonosis?” He seems to hesitate. “Yes. Once.”

“What happened here? I know it’s deserted now. There was some kind of accident, wasn’t there?” She recalls vaguely hearing, as a child, talk about something dreadful happening on Geonosis, like a natural disaster, an earthquake or something similar.

He walks ahead of her, not looking back. “You mean the Sterilisation.”

“The what?”

It’s not her imagination: he’s walking faster now, harder, as if trying to leave the topic behind him. Yet he goes on. “During the Empire, the local population were recruited as workers to build the Death Star – actually the Geonosians were its original designers. When the works were sufficiently advanced, Grand Moff Tarkin – the Emperor’s second-in-command – made sure that the project remained secret. All the Geonosians on the planet were exterminated.”

Premy is shocked to a halt. “What?”

“They were insectoids. Reproduction through egg-laying queens, and their society was based around hives, one queen per hive. Kill the queens, kill the eggs, kill the hives. It was relatively simple. Or so I was told.”

“Or so you were told? _By who_?” She stumbles as she hurries again, trying to catch up with him. He is walking faster and faster now, his face down, his jaw set. She hesitates, then asks the question. “Hux, did your father do this?”

He stops brusquely, glares at her over his shoulder. “No.” Then his expression seems to soften, to mutate into something very odd, and he looks away, blinking at the horizon. He shades his eyes with his hand. “The capital is that way,” he points at somewhere invisible in the distance. “I think Dobol has established her base there, but I used to have contacts in the city, and most likely there are still operative. If we can get there, we can send a message to Coruscant letting them know where we are.” He bites his lip slightly, pondering. “And if we are lucky, perhaps help is already on the way.”

“If we are lucky?”

“If we are lucky and _Lord Ren_ has stopped smashing things long enough to pay some attention to my ransom message, yes.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” And he starts walking again.

 

***

 

They reach the tor – which is actually more a long rocky outcrop, like the spine of some huge, long-defunct beast emerging from the red sands – as the sun plunges behind the horizon. There are six moons now, and they look larger, fuller, yellow and orange and deep scarlet in the dying light, like ripe fruit hanging from the heavens. There’s a wind rising, blowing across the desert, erasing their tracks.

The outcrop is riddled with holes and caves and tunnels, millennia of wind’s work. They light up their chemical torches and walk through a crack into a long winding tunnel, which leads into a larger cavern. “We can camp here for the night,” says Hux. “I’ll light a fire.”

“Is it safe?” says Premy. “Thermal sensors.”

“We’re deep enough in the rock for sensors not to detect our heat, or the fire’s heat. And it gets very cold, very fast, here.”

They set up their bivouac quickly and quietly, Hux starting a chemical fire between some stones, Premy unpacking their sleeping bags from their rucksacks and laying them out. When they are done, they fish out their food rations and water and eat and drink in silence.

“How’s it feeling?” says Hux eventually, nodding at her bandaged arm. “I think there are some painkillers in the first aid kit, if it’s hurting.”

“I can deal with the pain,” she answers, finishing her energy bar.

He gazes at her steadily. “Yes. You can. Can’t you?”

And once again, there’s that sudden tension, that electricity between them. She swallows, holds herself up against his gaze.  “As much as you can inflict it.”

He smirks. “Indeed.”

She blushes under his gaze – she doesn’t know why, they have clearly established by now what the pain that he can give her does to her (and what it does to him). And yet it still makes her feel so exposed, so vulnerable. So – truth be told – aroused. Again.

_Really, really not the best time for that, Premy._

She turns around to grab something from her rucksack, and he notices, hawk-like.

“What’s that?” Pointing at the small of her back, where her jacket has slid up, exposing her skin, and the other bandage. She brings her hand to it, self-consciously.

“Oh. That’s the – test they did. Which they sedated me for. It’s better now, but that really hurt when I woke up. Made me so nauseous I threw up.”

He frowns. “Let me take a look.”

She stares at him, not sure what he means. Then says again: “Let me see.” Gesturing with his hand for her to come closer.

She moves towards him, turns around awkwardly, looking over her shoulder. _Is he expecting me to lower my trousers or…?_

But he positions her in front of him, so that she is placed on all fours, her back – or, more accurately, her bottom – to him. Then he lifts her jacket and her top, and gently prods at the bandage. “Does it hurt?” She shakes her head no, even though it does, a bit. “Let me see…”

She feels him pull the dressing off, raising one sticky edge, then two more. She turns around again, trying to see his expression, but he is leaning very close to her skin, peering.

“This is a lumbar puncture, Premy,” he says, eventually.

“A _what_?”

“They pierced your spine. It’s a very old medical sampling technique – it’s hardly used nowadays because it’s so invasive and painful for the patient, and it’s been superseded by much more comprehensive tests.” He frowns at the puncture wound, which is not particularly small, and is swollen and red, like a large insect bite. “They used a large needle, too. Odd. What on earth were they looking for?”

“How do you know that?”

Her question brings him out of his thoughts. “What?”

“How do you know that? About medical procedures?”

“Oh.” He looks down and aside, as if avoiding her gaze. “I… have an interest in anatomy.”

She blinks at him, struck by the somewhat perplexing thought of Hux undergoing medical training. Doctor Hux.

_No. Just no._

And then he looking at her again, but not her face. Still the small of her back. His hands, she realises, have not moved from her hips. He carefully puts the dressing back in place. “I’ll change it tomorrow,” he says, his voice suddenly husky.

She starts to move, but his hands move down to her hips again, holding her down. She hears herself breathe, two, three breaths, in the silence, feeling the heat of his hands on her skin, his weight on her.

And then his hands slide up beneath her top, up her flanks and her ribs and across her stomach, and he is leaning forward, so that his warmth comes up against her, against her legs, and her back and his arms are around her, wrapping her, imprisoning her, bringing her down. And she falls down under him, her arms crushed by her own body and by his, her wounds throbbing, and he turns her around, pinching her nipples, hard, so hard, and before she realises what she is doing her legs are tight around his waist and his mouth is on her, his tongue plunging into her, his teeth biting her lips. And she extends her arms to her sides to prop herself, to balance herself, and as he plunders he brings his hand down around the bandage on her forearm, squeezing, so that she cries out with the pain, and she cums under his hand, under his mouth, for the first time that night. 

 

 


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terribly sorry it's taken me so long to update - life (and shit) happens. My apologies to everyone. 
> 
> And thank you, as always, for reading, commenting, and kudosing. It's not the easiest of times for me right now, and it really means the world.

They sleep fitfully, later, making their beds as best they can in the red dust – they are covered in the stuff now: Premy cannot help but think of Ren saying, in his deep, mocking voice, “ _I really hadn’t thought it possible that you could get more orange, Hux._ ” When they wake up, they go about their business as if nothing had happened the night before. Despite the persistent throbbing in her forearm where Hux had deliberately pressed on her wound. It makes her stomach clench, every time she remembers.

He’s studying a map, with his usual frown of concentration. He points at several spots on the screen, showing her. “This is where we are now. And we need to get to – here,” swiping to reach a larger spot. “Geonosia, the capital. It should take us a couple of days on foot. There are several places where we can take shelter along the way.”

 _If my mother doesn’t find us first, that is,_ she thinks grimly, but nods, and they get going.

They hardly talk as they walk during the day – they have only just enough water for a few days. Besides, she finds that just focusing on her feet, the steady monotony of one step after the other, helps her to avoid the swirling mess of her thoughts. And if there’s something she wants to avoid right now is thinking. About her mother. About Hux. About pain, and what it seems to do to both of them. About how she has managed to end up so fucked up, and in such a fucked-up situation.

Hux makes no attempts at conversation either. He is wearing a perpetual frown now – his usual sign of concentration, but also, clearly of concern. She suspects he’s expecting for them to be discovered and captured any minute – which is also what she expects, even though neither of them will acknowledge it.

One dull step after another. They trudge on in silence.

 

***

 

Miraculously, and against their expectations, they manage to make it uncaptured to another one of the rock outcroppings that Hux has marked on the map as safe spots to spend the night.

“How is your wound?” he asks suddenly, breaking the silence in which they have been eating their rations.

“Fine. I think. It’s hurting less.” She stares at him. “Unless you want to change that.”

He stares back at her – she’s impassive, and it’s impossible to read whether that’s a reproach or an invitation. Or both things at the same time. He swallows, feeling the lust stir in him again. They are stranded on a desert planet, hunted down by a ruthless criminal – they really can’t afford to waste their energies on this.

And yet.

“Would you like me to change that?” he says, looking down at the last remains of his portion, deliberately not looking at her.

“It’s not so much a matter of liking, is it,” she replies. “Rather a matter of – “

He looks up. She is looking at her in that intent way of hers, which he finds so unsettling and at the same time so –

He finishes the sentence. “Need.”

She doesn’t even have to nod, it’s so obvious. “Why do you think you need it?” she says, eventually, cupping her cheek in her hand.

“Why do I need what?”

“Hurting me.”

He is silent for a moment, wondering whether this is a trick question – he used to get those practically on a daily basis, with Snoke. He finds it hard to get used to sincerity. And then he remembers those times in his office – it seems so long ago – when he would interrogate her. And realises that she’s deliberately turning the tables on him. _Therapy?_

He tries to answer as truthfully as he is able to, though. “I think it’s got to do with my upbringing. My father was a cruel man. A harsh man.”

“And you try to emulate him?”

He looks horrified at the thought for a second. Then something deeper, and darker, emerges through his features. “I loathed my father. I never wanted to emulate him.” He looks at her. “I wanted to _surpass_ him. To be so much more than he could ever hope to be.”

“But that’s not all, is it?”

“How do you mean?”

“You have become much more successful than your father ever was. And you hardened yourself accordingly. But there’s more than that, isn’t there.” She pauses. “You don’t do what you do because your father did it. Your father was a brute. You have studied _female anatomy_ because you wanted to know exactly what happens when you do certain things. You don’t need that to gain power.”

He crosses his arms, trying to conceal – mainly from himself – how he is becoming flustered by this line of questions. “What are you suggesting, Premy?”

“I’m suggesting that it’s not a means towards an end for you. You enjoy it too much. As I said, you _need it_ too.” She leans forward. “Why? What does hurting me make you feel?”

He swallows again, feeling, to his intense frustration, how the blood is rushing, no doubt visibly, to his face. It’s a question he has struggled with since he was a teenager, when he started to notice what things stirred him, the dark thoughts that would creep into his mind every time he needed to jerk off (for he was never able to go for very long without masturbating, despite his continuous, tortured attempts at focused celibacy).

“Control,” he stutters, feeling as if he were walking into unstable grounds now, a swamp, a quagmire, where his footing is unsteady and he could plunge into the depths any second. “Control,” he repeats, even as he loses it, as he goes into the unknown. “I need to be in control.”

“But there is also the pain.”

“Yes.” He takes a deep breath. “I… am fascinated by the other’s reaction. By _your_ reactions. How what I do – what I do _to you_ – affects you. Your nerves are on fire, and your skin is alive, and you’re twisting under me, and I am _doing that to you_.” He exhales. “It’s the most arousing thing I can think of.”

She stares at him palely, as if the blood had left her face, the negative image of his flushed face. He can see the hairs on her arms stand on end, though. “It’s pain, though,” she says. “Most people feel that way about pleasure.”

“It’s not just pain. It’s the border. The edge.” He is breathing faster now. “I think… I think for people like me – for people like us – pleasure and pain get entangled at some point, very early on.” He wants to move close to her now, to grab her by the waist and pull her down, pin her arms down, twisting her body, _seizing._ He remains still.

“I have also realised – how much better it is – how –” He bites his lip in frustration at his inarticulacy. “I have tortured people. And I cannot pretend that it didn’t arouse me, at same level. I am a sadist, after all. But when I realised that you actually – that it turned you on – I…” He looks up at her, turning his palms up in proffered helplessness.

She smiles, unexpectedly, a skewed, amused smile. “I can’t believe you had never come across a masochist before, Chairman.”

He smiles back, a wide smile, relieving the tension. “Hard to believe, I know. But true.” He does move close to her now, grabbing her wrist. “Knowing that you want it, and you want it from me – you have no idea what effect that has on me.”

She looks down, still wearing her amused smile. “Oh, I think I have some idea.”

He stares at her for a second. Then removes his hand and moves back to where he was sitting before. He has smelt her musk, glimpsed the outline of her hardening nipples through her top. “We should go to sleep now. We’ll need all our energy tomorrow.” And very calmly brushes non-existent crumbs from off his clothes and proceeds to get his sleeping bag ready for the night.

Premy’s smile fades immediately. “You bloody…” she mutters under her breath.

He turns to look over his shoulder at her. “Hmm? Did you say anything?”

She glares at him. “Nothing.” She puts away her own stuff and roughly pulls her sleeping bag out of the rucksack as if she hated it. “ _A fucking sadist indeed.”_

Behind her back, he grins. Hugely.

 

 


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey. Just a brief note to let you know that I will be putting this story in hiatus for a while (not too long, though, I hope). I have been going through the breakup of a long-term relationship, and, as you can imagine, writing about two people falling in love is a bit too much right now.
> 
> I fully intend to finish the story, though (I already know what's going to happen) - I really, really hate it when stories are not completed (I want to know what happens!)
> 
> It's just I need to get in a better frame of mind to do it properly. I hope you'll understand. Thanks to everyone for reading.

PLACEHOLDER FOR A BIT


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Hope you've all had a good holiday, and that the new year is off to a good start.
> 
> Thank you specially to all the readers who took time to leave comments and/or kudos. It's great to be back.

She is dreaming of a sandstorm. The sand rushing red through the air like a bloody sheet, hurtling at her, stinging her, as she rushes through, shouting for him. He’s gone, he’s somewhere in this blinding redness, she’s got to find him but she can’t see, she can’t hear himself in the deafening roar of this deserts, as the sand drives against her and into her eyes, into her throat, and she is suddenly filled with panic as she gagging on it, her airways choking on the redness…

She awakes, his hand covering her mouth. He brings a finger to his lips as she widens her eyes.

 _There’s someone near,_ he mouths silently.

She scrambles to her feet, shocked out of her bleariness, and Hux leads her to a recess in the rock, pressing up against each other in the narrow crevice. She notices the expertness with which he erases their traces in the sand with his back foot as they move, the taut alertness with which he holds himself, like a spooked cat. This is a man who has been in this situation before, and many times at that.

He says nothing, but nods towards one of the ends of the long rocky outcropping where they have sought shelter for the night. His blaster is in his hand, ready. He gestures, indicating that when he starts shooting, she should run towards the opening of the outcropping.

She shakes her head, indignant. _I’m not leaving you here._

He seizes her wrist with his free hand, hard, glaring. _You go._

She refuses again, and he is about to hiss something at her, when something starts to thud. A low, dull, steady thud.

They stare at each other, wide-eyed, then around, trying to locate the source of the sound, but it seems to be all around them – as if the rocks, as if the earth itself were throbbing, as if something were moving beneath the surface, something emerging…

There is sudden whooshing sound, then, and the sand starts to swirl on the ground, whirling like eddies in a pool following the rhythm of the thumping beats.

“ _We need to get out of…!”_ she shouts, frantically pulling at Hux’s arm as she stumbles out of the crevice, but the ground is already crumbling and collapsing, the swirl spiralling around them, and the sand sifts and slides and cascades around them, a dark red swathe, as they fall into the darkness.

 

***

 

Pounding. First in her head, painfully, then, as she slowly comes to, she realises that it’s not just the throbbing in her skull – something is knocking, nearby, or rather around her, and she remembers the swirling sands, and the fall. Frantically, she looks around for Hux, who is lying on his side a few metres away from her, groaning. They are both at the bottom of what looks like an artificial pit, dimly lit. _By what…?_

The knocking stops, suddenly, and a beam of light falls upon them from the farther, darker end of the pit. Something scurries in the darkness. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpses how Hux twitches minutely, apparently still unconscious – which, she knows already from watching him, is a sign that he is tensing up for combat.

“Stay down or we’ll shoot”. A voice coming out of the dark, odd and clacking, like the inexpressive mechanical reproduction of a voice in an antique machine. Something not quite human. “We know you’re conscious. Sit up slowly and raise your arms”.

They obey, taking a quick look at each other in concern – Hux seems to be all right, although he must have hit his head in the fall: there is a streak of red down the side of his face. She imagines she’ll look similar, dazed and dusty and bedraggled.

The figure steps out of what seems to be the mouth of a tunnel. Tall. Bipedal. Winged. As it comes into the light of the beam, she can see its two-toed feet, its long, narrow, insectoid jaw, the articulated carapace of its exoskeleton. And cannot help but be reminded of an oversize cockroach.

She looks at Hux, who is staring at the creature in utter astonishment. And understands.

_So it turns out the Geonosians are not extinct, after all._

The creature – the Geonosian – stares down at them. “Do as we say, and you will be unharmed. Do you understand?” She stares as the stilted, unnatural voice speaks, not from its mouth or the area where its throat – if it had one – would be, but rather from the back of its head, where there is a sort of blur, a flutter. Stunned, she nods, and suddenly four other creatures _scurry_ – there is no other word – out of the tunnel and towards them, and she finds her arms being efficiently trussed up behind her, and almost carried by the creatures into the tunnel, where she and Hux are unceremoniously dumped into the back of some carrier vehicle.

The Geonosians, she notices, move together, wordlessly, not even looking at each other, with uncanny swiftness and precision. They all climb onto the vehicle – which appears to be a very old Imperial leftover, some sort of modified caterpillar-tracked thing – and the engine starts rumbling into the tunnels.

They whoosh through the darkness – the vehicle has somehow been modified to be much faster and quiet than she would have expected of something some heavy and armoured, but she remembers Hux telling her that the Geonosians had once been recruited to build the Death Star because of their technical skills. Which was also the downfall – so as to ensure that its most lethal weapon would remain secret, the Empire had exterminated the entire population of Geonosis. Or almost.

An extermination campaign, she now remembers, that was implemented by one of the Emperor’s generals. Brendol Hux.

She cannot see him in the hurtling, dizzying dark, or reach out to him. But now she understands the expression she saw on his face. It wasn’t just astonishment. It was horror.

 

***

The tunnel emerges into brightness, and she blinks at an underground cavern, into which the rays of the rising sun pour through a well, high up. They are both bundled out of the vehicle, and pushed along into a long corridor. Leading into another cavern, this one shaped as an amphitheatre, and as large as one, rows upon rows upon rows of ledges curving along the sloping walls of the cave up to the luminous top. And along each ledge, hundreds of holes, in and out of which hundreds of Geonosians are busily swarming, both on foot and flying.

_A hive._

She looks at Hux, who is staring at the seething cells in open-mouthed astonishment. “This is the Golbah hive,” he mutters. “It’s not possible. They were sterilised.”

But the frantic activity in the hive seems anything but sterile, and the Geonosians pushing them along seem very much healthy and alive. Again, they lead them into a tunnel, and after endless twists and turns leave them in a small, empty cell, lit by some sort of glow-worm in a jar, and push the door-slab shut behind them.

They sit on the floor, in a stunned silence. Then she spurts out the first thing that comes into her mind: “How do they _speak_? It’s so _weird_.”

“Elytra,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, where one of their captors seized him too hard. “Residual wing-cases on their backs. They rub them together to make sounds – that’s how they imitate verbal language. It’s not native to them.”

“Geonosians don’t speak to each other?”

“They communicate through some sort of hive mind – shared telepathy. But I thought they needed a queen to…”

He is interrupted by the sound of the slab sliding open again. And, again, that crackling, stilted speech – or whatever it may be – , slightly lower this time, and more confident, as though the emitter had spent more time among humans. “We do. And we have a queen once again, General Hux. Surprised?”

The Geonosian who walks into the cell is taller, and stronger, and more clearly an alpha than any of the ones they have seen until now. And much more threatening. They both stand up as a reflex.

“May I know whom I am addressing, and why we are being held against our will?” says Hux, summoning as much gravitas as possible.

The Geonosian makes a chirping sound that, Premy imagines, is their equivalent of chuckling. “You are addressing Archduke Klak.  And you are being held against your will, firstly, because you are offworld intruders, who are no longer welcome on _our_ planet.” He leans forward, bringing his face close to Hux’s. “And secondly, because we couldn’t believe our luck when we realised that we had stumbled upon the Exterminator’s offspring. The child of the killer who almost succeeded in wiping our species out.” He leans back again, drinking in their expressions with obvious relish. “We Geonosians enjoy our revenge, General, even if it takes a long time. And believe us, we are going to take our time enjoying it. As the Exterminator tried to stamp us out, so will we stamp the Exterminator’s seed out – slowly, painfully, and methodically.”

Hux is becoming very red with anger, which, Premy suspects, is also concealing his fear, and no wonder. “You don’t know who you are speaking to, you…” And Premy barges in, before he says anything too insulting: “You can’t kill him, he’s the _Chairman of the Federation,_ you’ll have the entire government on your back, please, you can’t…”

Klak stares at both of them, clearly puzzled, as Premy tries to persuade him of just how important Hux is and the awful things that will happen if they touch even one ginger hair on his head.

“You thought we were talking about _you,_ General?” He makes an unpleasant whirring noise, as if his elytra were grinding sharply against each other, like a knife on a whetting-stone – the Geonosian version of laughter. “Your father was a butcher, but he was just a minion, a cog in the machine.” He turns to Premy. “But as soon as the smell of _her_ DNA was in the Geonosian air and reached the hive-mind, we knew who she was – we would recognise that DNA anywhere. _She_ ’s the child of the Exterminator. And she will be both the instrument and the object of our revenge.”

 

 


End file.
